


Once and Only

by Fallen Pride (Jade), Jade, jade-1459 (Jade)



Series: Finding Emily [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Kid Fic, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:11:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade/pseuds/Fallen%20Pride, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade/pseuds/Jade, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade/pseuds/jade-1459
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re the only one wanting to start a family here in Atlantis, Rodney,” Elizabeth pointed out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once and Only - 1/5

_John blew carefully into his mug, feeling the vapour coming off the liquid surface wavering around his face. Cradling the mug carefully in both hands he took a small sip and smiled. It was just like he remembered. It was an odd remedy for a sleepless night, but it was a Sheppard Family tradition. A cup of hot chocolate that was heavy on the chocolate taste, mixed with just the right amount of cool cream to make it thicker on the tongue, and topped with a handful of melting marshmallows. He hadn’t had a mug of this stuff in years._

 _“So, are you going to tell me what’s keeping you up?”_

 _Opening his eyes, John considered what he could say. It wasn’t like he had an abundant number of people he could talk to on Atlantis. And the few people he could talk to he’d told the bare minimum to - because it wasn’t his story to tell. He didn’t really have the right to repeat it._

 _But here, here he could talk about what was really bothering him. There was no better person in either galaxy to talk to. At least she would understand the back story so he wouldn’t have to explain._

 _“He writes letters to her,” John said. “He’s been writing letters to her almost from the moment he knew his ex-wife was pregnant. He writes every week to her. I think he writes to her not just because he feels more connected to Emily that way, but because she’s the only person he can tell anything to._

 _“There is no pressure if he tells her. No worries about rejection or what she might think,” John added. “Those letters are sort of like his version of self-therapy I guess.” Frowning he stared into his mug of hot chocolate. “I just wish…”_

 _The chair scrapped against the kitchen floor and John looked up, meeting a pair of familiar hazel eyes. “You just wish that he’d show the same trust to you, and confide in you instead.”_

 _Said like that, John thought it was kind of selfish, but there it was. “Well, yeah.”_

~*~*~

“Are you out of your mind, Rodney?” Elizabeth demanded. “This is Atlantis for god’s sake! This is no place to be raising a family. We’re in the middle of a war with the Wraith!”

Rodney just leaned back in the chair he was sitting in and considered Elizabeth. It was a circular argument and they had already covered this ground twice before. He was getting a little tired of the repetitiveness of it. “No?” he asked in mock wide-eyed wonderment. “Is this really _the_ Atlantis?”

“Rodney,” Elizabeth warned. “You’re missing the point.”

“No,” Rodney stated evenly. “You’re missing the point, Elizabeth. Yes, we’re in the middle of a war. Hell we’re almost sitting at ground zero. But what makes you think that Earth is any safer? What makes Earth any better? At least here I know what kind of danger we’re in. I know what we’re facing because I’m not being kept in the dark about it.

“Besides, what do you think we’re all fighting for anyway?” Rodney asked, gesturing with his hands again. “We are not fighting for Earth. We stopped fighting for that planet almost a year ago. We’re fighting for our families, for our friends, and loved ones we left behind. Having the comfort of family here in Atlantis would not only help center the reasons we’re even doing this, but it’ll be a comfort to be able to see those people.”

Elizabeth shook her head, stubbornly sticking to her guns. And Rodney had to admire her a little for that, but at the moment she was wrong. “Pegasus is not a place for a family,” she told him.

“Tell that to the Athosians,” Rodney snapped.

“Excuse me?” Disbelief at Rodney’s tone won over the outrage.

“You said Pegasus is not a place for a family. Tell that to the Athosians. Tell them they should stop having children because it isn’t safe for them. Tell them they should stop having families because they are going to die anyways - probably in some horrible fashion. Go tell every damn world we gate to that they should say ‘fuck it’ and give in.”

“Now that was completely uncalled for,” Elizabeth hissed through her teeth. “You know exactly what I meant by my comment.”

“Yes, I do,” Rodney responded. “It’s alright for the people here in Pegasus to have families. For them to have children and to keep building themselves a home. It’s alright for them to keep living even though the Wraith are a constant threat to them. But it’s not alright for us.”

Standing up, Rodney began to pace. “It’s not alright for us to start having families here in Atlantis because it isn’t safe. Never mind the fact that Atlantis is our home. Those of us who chose to stay when we had the choice to leave, we can’t continue to build our lives because we’re at war, and having children and families around might skew our judgment about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“You’re the only one wanting to start a family here in Atlantis, Rodney,” Elizabeth pointed out.

Rodney shook his head at that. “That’s where you‘re wrong Elizabeth.” When she just raised an eyebrow at that, Rodney went on. “What if I told you that Carson has had to perform five abortions thus far? You wouldn’t believe me, would you?”

He didn’t seem to need her answer. “Three of my staff and two of his Marines,” he added, jerking his thumb in John’s direction. “They had abortions because they were afraid that if you found out about the pregnancies you’d send them back to Earth to have the baby. Afraid you wouldn’t let them stay. I’d told them they were wrong. That you would understand the need to start a life for ourselves here.”

Rodney just looked at her for a moment. “I’m sad to say they were right. You would have sent them back because you don’t understand.”

With that Rodney turned about on his heel and left the room, the glass door swishing shut behind him. Silence filled her office for a moment while she just stared at Rodney’s retreating back before she turned her attention to John.

“I can’t believe that,” Elizabeth said softly, walking around her desk to lean against its front. She looked over to her military commander and asked, “Please tell me you have a way to talk him out of this foolishness?”

John blinked slowly at her, his face an unreadable mask. He stared at her for a moment, expression giving nothing away. Elizabeth was forced to wonder if she might have made an error in judgment, but she pushed the doubt aside. John hadn’t always been on her side when it came to the state of Atlantis. And Atlantis was not a place to be raising a family.

“I’ve gotta ask,” John said, arms crossing over his chest as he leaned a little further against the wall. “What do you see when you look at us?”

Elizabeth blinked. “When I look at whom?”

“Me and Rodney, the two of us. What do you see when you look at us? What thought runs through your head when you see us sitting together in the mess? Or walking down a hall way? Or sprawled out in your office? What is it you see?”

She was tempted to say ‘two over grown children’, and laugh off some of the tension filling the room now. But John’s expression demanded a serious answer from her. And she could give nothing less. Considering, she thought about it. Thought about all the times she saw the two of them together and what she thought when she did see them. Over grown children was the first thought that usually filtered through her mind when she saw them.

But in a close second came beautiful. She didn’t think that was the answer John was looking for however. “Friendship,” she finally answered. “Close friendship.”

John considered her for a moment before he nodded to himself. “Rodney‘s right you know,” he responded. “Atlantis is home now. And don’t you tell me that you don’t think the same thing, Elizabeth. Atlantis is home for you just as much as it is for me and Rodney and everyone else who was here that first year and stayed. We deserve a chance to make a life for ourselves here because we aren’t going back.”

Pushing off the wall, he added, “You’re going to lose him and a lot of other people if you won’t let us build a life, Elizabeth. Rodney will leave Atlantis for his daughter. As soon as Rodney decides when he’s leaving for Earth I’m going with him. And if you can’t be the friend he needs you to be, Elizabeth, I don’t think either of us will be coming back.”

And then John had left as well.

Elizabeth was left to wonder what she had missed. Because she had missed something along the way, something important. Moving back behind her desk, she stared blankly at her computer screen while she worked it out. She understood the feeling of home that had become associated with Atlantis. It was one of the reasons she’d fought so hard to keep John here in Atlantis when they had finally made contact with Earth again.

It hadn’t been just because without him they would all be dead. Because John had sacrificed small pieces of himself to keep them safe. He’d given up pieces of his soul so she would didn’t have to wear and carry a gun. He’d given up more pieces to keep Rodney from knowing what it meant to kill. He hadn’t been so successful there, but he had tried. He’d begun cutting out parts of himself long before she had met him. But he’d left the most pieces scattered about Atlantis just so they wouldn’t have to do the things he did.

Helping him keep a place he called home had seemed like such a small thing to give in response to that kind of sacrifice. When they had come back, John had vowed that he was never going back to Earth. He’d use his leave here in Pegasus and take vacation over on the mainland. But there he had stood and told her that he was going to head back to Earth with Rodney whenever he was ready to leave and that they might not come back. John wouldn’t go back to Earth for any reason, unless…

She closed her eyes and wondered why she hadn’t seen it before.

God, it had been right there for her to see the entire time but she’d just overlooked every hint and clue the two of them had tossed her way. And now she was left floundering, trying to find something solid to grasp on to.

Turning back to her computer, she began to pull up the files she had on the members of IOA and the top brass of the military members involved with the SGC and Atlantis by extension. She might have been blind to the obvious facts in front of her, but she could make it up to them. After all diplomatic relations were one part skill, one part intellect, and three parts blackmail.


	2. Once and Only - 2/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Passing over a beer bottle, Rodney stated, “So you’re a miracle child for you parents.”

_“There’s nothing wrong with wanting someone you care about to reflect the same kind of trust that you place in them, baby,” she told him, a serious expression on her face._

 _“I know,” John answered and grimaced. “It’s not like I want him to stop writing to her. I know he needs that connection, and I wouldn’t take that from him. Everyone needs someone or something that they can tell everything to, and for him the letters to Emily are exactly that. And for me it’s Rodney. I don’t tell him everything-everything, but I don’t really have to either because he already knows or understands. But it… hurts that he can’t rely on me like that.”_

 _John set his mug down on the table and fiddled with the handle as the silence stretched. He was trying to remember the theory he’d worked up about the hot chocolate and what she did to it to make him spill his guts like this all over the kitchen table. Because it was only when she stuck a mug of hot chocolate in his hands that he would let his guard down and just talk._

 _“How long have you known each other?” she asked._

 _John looked up again before answering. “Two and a half, almost three years.”_

 _“And in that time you have both seen and done horrible things.” She held up her hand to stall his protests about not being able to talk about it. “I know you can’t tell me about what you’ve been doing these last few years, and I got plenty of practice in not asking questions while I was still married to your father.” She smiled a little at him before going on. “But in all that time you’ve known each other, how many times have you experience those horrible things alone?”_

 _John blinked and thought, leaning back in his chair and bringing his mug of hot chocolate with him. Frowning he answered, “Once, maybe twice.”_

~*~*~

They had a two night layover before their final flight.

Using the time to relax and catch up on missed sleep, John and Rodney took a hotel room in the city to escape the bustling crowds in the street. It was the first real bit of alone time they’d gotten in a long time and John had every intention of enjoying it to the fullest. And apparently Rodney thought the same way because once they were in their hotel room, he’d sprawled out on the bed and watched John follow him over.

They were on leave, on vacation really. John stretched out next to Rodney and turned on his side so he could face the scientist. When they touched it was slow and careful, something they hadn’t really had time for back on Atlantis.

After the near perfect first time, every encounter had been a little awkward, a little clumsy. They got bumped noses, and scratch marks where they shouldn’t be. Too much teeth grazing in far too delicate areas, not enough lube or stretching. Whatever could fall under either category had so far happened. But now they had time. They could take their time and make this right, or at least not so clumsy.

When Rodney’s lips brushed his in a chaste kiss, John sighed softly. Rodney’s hand was already working under his t-shirt, smoothing up his side and down his back. Just a soft touch, but John’s body arched into it. He missed being touched. As isolated as he made himself, physical contact - skin to skin - was still something he craved. And Rodney was a tactile person.

John pulled back a little and asked, “Naked?”

Rodney blinked at him, as though trying to figure out what the hell was going on. But the lack of urgency in John’s voice and whatever Rodney saw on his face had him nodding in agreement.

They both crawled out of bed on their own sides and began to strip. It wasn’t meant to be a show, but Rodney couldn’t help watching John as he pulled off one article of clothing at a time. Watching the responsibilities slip from John’s shoulders had been a relief. It was like seeing a new person living in the same skin. He was more carefree, laughed a little more often, and had a readier smile. But it was the body that reminded him that this was the same Lt. Colonel John Sheppard he had known for almost three years.

The thin white lines of scars told him it was the same man. And while scarring was a type of flaw, possibly a deformity, on John Sheppard each and every thin line only enhanced what Rodney saw as beautiful. Seeing the muscles work on his back as he pulled his shirt off made Rodney’s hands itch to touch.

Shedding his own clothing quickly, Rodney got back on the bed and waited for John to finish pushing his jeans down long legs before he joined him.

Back on the bed they met in a soft kiss, hands moving everywhere, trying to touch every bit of revealed skin but still remaining light caresses. Careful teasing strokes of a hand down his back, only to curve over his hip and inch its way up to his shoulder, running over an erect nipple along the way. When John gently pushed him onto his back, Rodney didn’t fight the move. He only wrapped his arms around John’s torso and brought him atop his body.

~*~*~

Rodney woke up curled around John the next morning - head pressed between his shoulders, arm slung over his waist, fingers weaving senseless patterns on his abdomen. He knew that John was already awake; he could feel it in the way the muscles of his back moved against his forehead. Nuzzling against the back of his neck, Rodney stretched out behind John.

“Morning,” John said when he rolled over to face Rodney.

“Morning,” Rodney responded in a sleep rough voice. A surprisingly good night sleep and lack of coffee were Rodney’s only excuses when he asked, “Are you going to tell me why we’re making a side trip and not making hotel arrangements for tomorrow?”

John froze against him for a moment and Rodney was forced to wonder if they were going to have a repeat of the argument that had erupted just after John’s announcement of having found Emily. It would be for different reasons of course, but the end result would be the same. And they were supposed to be relaxing and enjoying the vacation while it lasted, even though they were going to have to get the ball rolling for custody arrangements and legal proceedings. Carson had ordered them to relax – before one of them developed an ulcer or had a mental breakdown from stress.

John relaxed after a moment, though Rodney wished he could think of a different word, because it just did not work. John had unfrozen, but he had remained tense and as close to still as he could get. “I figured that with trying to get custody of Emily, you wouldn’t want to look too stalkerish to your ex-in-laws,” John began and Rodney had to fight down the urge to make him get to the point. Sheppard would get there when he was good and ready to be there. “The place we’re going to be staying is within easy driving distance - but not too close - and in a good neighbourhood. It’s my mother’s house.”

It was Rodney’s turn to freeze. John didn’t talk about his past, or his family that much. Rodney had actually assumed that he had no family left alive to worry about him. Obviously that assumption had been wrong. And now he was almost willingly sharing the information.

“I haven’t seen her in years,” John admitted softly.

Rodney licked his lips and stated, “And you want to see her again.”

“Well… Yeah.”

“Does she know that we’re going to invade her home for like three weeks?” Rodney asked.

John shrugged against him. “I have an open invitation to go back whenever I feel like it,” he offered.

Rodney wanted to both laugh and cry at the uncertain tone of voice John was using. John was anything _but_ uncertain. He was confidence personified most of the time, but when it came to his welcome in his mother’s house, he wasn’t so sure of himself. Instead of doing either Rodney reluctantly sighed and demanded, “She better be able to cook better than you.” Which got him a punch on the shoulder and a muffled oath.

~*~*~

They spent the better part of the afternoon haunting various electronic stores later that afternoon searching for the perfect digital camera and accessories. Finally ending up at a Best Buy store not too far from their hotel room in the early evening having failed completely at finding a decent camera shop that wasn’t trying to just suck their pockets dry.

While they were shopping, Rodney learned that John’s mother was not only a photographer but that she used to teach elementary school. Her full name was Eileen Joanna Gentry-Sheppard. She was an excellent cook, an amateur photographer that was really just this side of professional. She was in her mid 70’s. John was her only child.

“So why haven’t to seen or spoken to her in years?” Rodney finally asked, his curiosity getting the best of him. The undereducated sales person talking to them about various types of cameras stopped talking to stare at him.

John sort of shrugged and said, “Because she didn’t tell me why they got divorced.” He reached over to pick up the camera that they had been looking at and alarms started chirp at them.

“Sorry,” the sales person said. Rodney still couldn’t figure out if it was a young woman or a young man helping them. “The alarms are sort of sensitive.”

“So we gather,” Rodney groused.

While he/she/it went to call their manager to turn off the alarm and to unlock the case to get them one of the cameras to look at, Rodney turned back to John. He waited quietly with the annoying alarm sounding around them for John to continue with his explanation. It was never a good idea, Rodney had discovered, to push the other man for information he was reluctant to give.

John shifted his weight from one foot to the other before he went on. “My parents tried for years to get pregnant. And they got lucky a number of times, but mom miscarried every pregnancy except for me-”

“Obviously,” Rodney muttered, and got a glare in response.

Huffing out a breath before he continued, John went on. “Apparently after Mom got pregnant with me, dad started accusing her of having an affair when she didn’t miscarry by her fourth month. She told me he didn’t outright accuse her of cheating on him - at least not at first.” Glancing around John rubbed his face and asked, “Can we continue this conversation after we buy the camera?”

Rodney spied their androgynous sales clerk coming back with their manager in tow and nodded. “I’ll buy dinner,” he offered as a sort of peace offering for having forced the conversation in a public setting.

When they got the camera out and had picked up three of the largest memory cards available for the damn thing, a carry case, and random other accessories that Rodney had no clue what to do with John asked, “So how does she get the pictures off the memory cards? Just bring them to a photo lab?”

“All she has to do is put the memory cards into her computer to get the pictures off them,” their sex-ambiguous aide informed them. “Or she can just hook the camera up to computer directly.”

John blinked and stared blankly at the sales person. “I don’t know if she has a computer,” he finally admitted.

“Oh for the love of… We are not buying your Mother a computer,” Rodney snapped.

They ended up buying the camera, accessories, memory cards, carry case, photo printer with extra ink cartridges, and full-ride service plan. The only reason they didn’t leave the store with a computer in tow was because Rodney had demanded to know how John was planning on flying all that crap out to his Mother’s house and still have enough room to pack his clothing. As it was it was going to be a tight squeeze.

~*~*~

They settled on pizza for dinner that night.

Rodney sat back on the couch in their hotel room and watched John for a moment. He was sitting cross legged on the floor with things scattered all around him. Rodney still hadn’t figured out why John had bought the damn camera in the first place, but he was sure he would find out eventually. As it was, Rodney just filed away the sight of Atlantis’ military commander carefully unfolding tissue paper with a few colourful sticky bows stuck to his chest.

Rodney was almost tempted to take a picture and sell it on the black market in Atlantis for a few extra rations of good coffee. He decided against it when the thought of being stuck to sleep on the couch entered his mind. He had plans for some great sex while they were on vacation.

Passing over a beer bottle, Rodney stated, “So you’re a miracle child for you parents.”

Hazel eyes snapped to his face. John had stopped mid-reach for the beer bottle. “I guess you could say that,” John answered carefully and snatched the beer out of Rodney’s hand.

Setting his beer aside, John reached for the memory cards and stacked them up on top of each other. Rodney blinked when he pulled out a roll of ribbon from somewhere and had to fight back the urge to take out a camera of his own all over again. He decided that John was doing either some serious ass kissing with the camera or he was trying to make an apology - both answers had too much proof to settle on one or the other.

“My parents got married young,” John told him, winding the ribbon – _ribbon_ – around the memory cards. “They didn’t want to wait to have kids, so they started trying right away. They got pregnant a few months after they got married. Mom miscarried six months along - nearly died.” He was frowning at the ribbon as he tied it off carefully - making sure the knot didn’t come lose.

“The doctors told them it happened sometimes but they shouldn’t stop trying. So they kept trying. She miscarried seven times before the doctors told them to stop trying.”

John peeled one of the bows off his t-shirt and stuck it on the memory cards before putting them into the brightly colour splashed bag they had picked up while they had waited for the pizza. He had never told anyone about his parents or his family, or much of anything about his past. It kept him out of the rumour mill in Atlantis, and it kept the embarrassment to an absolute minimum. People left him alone because they all believed that they wanted to believe about him. They believed he was lazy and carefree, not taking anything seriously except for the Daedalus visits. He knew they thought he was shallow and thought a lot like Rodney had at first - that he was a womanizer with a girl on every planet they visited.

And he let them believe that because it was simpler than opening up to them. It meant he didn’t have to live up to peoples expectations of him. They carried around this lowly image of him, and he surprised them when he surpassed their expectations of him. There were only a handful of people who expected better of him - Rodney, Elizabeth, Teyla, Ronon, Carson - those who had survived that first year.

Those were the people he hated to disappoint. And now he wanted Rodney to understand, even just a little - though he couldn’t have said what he wanted Rodney to understand.

“I was an accident,” John announced as he stuck a bow hap hazardously onto the carry for the camera. “They had stopped trying for a kid years before. Mom was 35 when she found out she was pregnant. She was three months along before she even realized she was pregnant.”

Rodney nearly choked on a mouthful of beer. “Three months!”

John made a face before he went on. “She had me, and apparently not long after dad started making comments.”

It was Rodney’s turn to make a face. “Way to be vague.”

John frowned and pointed his bottle at Rodney. “Ever consider that this is a story I haven’t told anyone before?” he asked. “Keep the comments to yourself until I’m done if you want to hear the rest of it.”

John waited until Rodney mimed zipping his mouth shut and took another swallow of beer. John snorted. “I remember he used to make little comments about me - comparing me to various relatives. I was a chubby kid, not really very active when was little. I wasn’t really into sports. I didn’t make friends easily and was a lot smarter than anyone else in the family. He’d point out the fact that he couldn’t find one physical resemblance between me and himself or anyone from his side of the family.

“It went on like that for years. Even after I lost all the baby fat and started to play sports. Mom ignored it, as far as I can remember, for years. The last straw was when she found out that dad had gotten a paternity test done.” Shrugging again, John leaned back against the arm chair and looked at Rodney when he said, “They got divorced when I was sixteen and mom and I moved into the beach house her parents had bought for her as a wedding present.”

“Your dad got a paternity test done?” Rodney asked incredulously.

John knew the tone and comment to be another unasked question. “Yeah, it kind of shut him up fast when it confirmed the fact I was his kid.”

~*~*~

“You’re nervous,” Rodney said.

“Yes, Mr. I-am-a-genius-but-will-state-the-obvious, I’m nervous.”

Looking across the street at the nice little two floor house, Rodney was silent for a moment. They had been sitting in their rented SUV for almost five minutes now. John had been fiddling with the brightly colour splashed bag for almost the entire time. “We can still get a hotel room,” he offered. Because if the situation were reversed and they were sitting across the street from Jeanie’s house, Rodney knew John would offer the same escape.

From the corner of his eye, Rodney watched John take in a deep breath and settle. “No,” he finally said. “We’re here.”

Getting out of the SUV was like the point of no return. He was out and walking towards his mother’s house, he couldn’t just go back and leave without at least seeing if she were home. But the car in the driveway had already told him that she was.

“Maybe she’s not home,” Rodney suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” John responded as they walked up the walkway. Little purple and pink flowers lined the walk on both sides - just like they always had. John was surprised at how comforting the lack of change was. He’d planted the two rose bushes at the head of the walk the fall they had moved into the house after the divorce. There was a dent on the door jam that they had made when they’d moved in - they’d been forced to get rid of the couch because it hadn’t fit through the door.

Ringing the door bell, John could hear the fluttery musical sound dimly behind it. They‘d changed the door bell tone when he was eighteen and they hadn’t been able to stand the sound of what amounted to a fire alarm going off.

When the door swung open, John pulled out the brightest smile he had. Eileen Gentry-Sheppard stared wide eyed at him for a moment. She looked almost the same as she had the last time he had seen her, though there was more grey in her hair now.

“Hi, mom,” John said cheerfully, handing over the gift bag with the camera in it.

She looked took the bag in shock and looked inside automatically. When she looked back up at him, John could see the suspicion filtering behind hazel eyes. His own thoughts were confirmed when she asked, “What nice girl did you knock up?”

Rodney watched in fascination as John blushed. He was suppressing laughter when John wined out a “Mom” just before he added, “I didn’t get any woman pregnant.”

But he lost the battle with laughter when Mrs. Sheppard heaved out a disappointed sigh and said, not entirely under her breath, “Shame, I was hoping you were going to bring me home a grandbaby to play with.”

He could feel her watching him while he clutched at his sides, laughing. John turned a pout in his direction and Rodney only laughed harder. He’d expected a lot of things when he’d pictured Mrs. Sheppard, but the petite woman standing the door way was no where near close to his imaginings. When he looked up to meet the woman’s gaze, ready to snark out a comment, he saw amusement and approval in her hazel eyes and ended up grinning at her instead.

“Come in,” she finally told them, opening the door wider. “I just put a pot of coffee on. You can tell me how long you’ll be staying with me, and fill me in on when you are going to adopt a baby so I can start taking pictures of grandchildren.”

~*~*~


	3. Once and Only - 3/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn’t until the grey light of early morning was a fading wish, clinging to the edges of the horizon that Rodney spoke. “I have a meeting with the lawyer this afternoon.”

_“Don’t you think,” she hedged, “that maybe he doesn’t confide in you because you were already there? You saw exactly what he saw. You know exactly what happened because you were right there with him. You’ve seen him at his best, and you’ve seen him at his worst, and he trusted you with that.”_

 _When John blinked at her over the rim of his mug she shrugged. “It’s obvious in the way you act around each other, baby. The type of closeness you two have has more to do with those moments than you realize. He trusted you to see him at his worst and not back away. And you trusted him to see the darkest part of you and not flinch.”_

 _Leaning forward, she asked him, “Do you love him?”_

 _John didn’t know how to answer that. She could see it on his face, so she changed the question. “Do you trust him?”_

 _“Of course,” John answered frowning._

 _“Is he important to you?” she went on._

 _“Yes.”_

 _“Does he make you happy?”_

 _John didn’t hesitate in answering. “Yes.”_

 _She paused before she asked her next question. “Have you killed for him?”_

 _John sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, head dropping back before he could answer. He didn’t want to see what his response would bring to her eyes. “Yes,” he said softly._

 _“Would you die for him?”_

 _Simple. “Yes.”_

 _“Would you live for him, baby?”_

 _The answer was right there on the tip of his tongue. He didn’t have to think about it, even though it was an odd question. “Yes, I’d live for him.”_

 _When he felt her hand on his he looked back down to her, meeting her understanding gaze. Her fingers were light and soft on the back of his hand. “Do you love him, baby?”_

 _“Yes,” John answered softly._

 _She smiled a little to him. “Are you in love with him?”_

 _It was like her understanding little smile was a dawning kind of light. Because the answer was just that simple now. It was right there in front of him and it had always been there. “Yeah,” he answered in the same soft voice that was more awed than hesitant._

~*~*~

It was pre-dawn when Rodney woke up. Grey light was filtering through the window to his room. He couldn’t even figure out why he’d woken up so early. The sound of the ocean had lulled him to sleep, even if the sound was a little bit off. Tossing aside the covers Rodney pulled on a pair of flannel pyjama pants and a long sleeved shirt before he went searching for the source of the coffee aroma filtering through the air.

He wasn’t exactly surprised to find Mrs. Sheppard sitting at the kitchen table already dressed, drinking a cup of coffee while reading the morning paper. She looked up at him when he stumbled into the little room. “Fresh pot,” she told him and turned back to her newspaper. She seemed to understand that Rodney was not altogether human until he’d consumed coffee.

The house was quiet, filled only with the sounds of the ocean rushing gently against the sandy beach out back. All the windows had been thrown open, and Rodney was glad he’d put on the long sleeved shirt because it was a cool morning. Closing his eyes, Rodney inhaled the bitter sent of coffee as it mingled with the smell of salt, sand and dew. It was different than Atlantis, but so familiar at the same time.

He was three-quarters of the way through his cup of coffee when he turned to face John’s mother. She was still reading her newspaper, ignoring him completely. Or at least he had thought she was until she closed the paper and said, more to herself, “He went out to sit on the rocks about an hour before you got up.” She finished her coffee and stood up.

Rodney nodded and finished his own cup and got a refill before he headed towards the sliding doors that led to the patio. “I’ll be back later this afternoon,” Mrs. Sheppard called after him before she disappeared towards the front of the house.

Rodney slid open the doors and stepped out. The patio stones were cold against his feet. There was a breeze blowing off the ocean, cool air pushing forward with the relentless tide. Unlike most beaches Rodney had seen, this one had more rocks than it did sand. The grey black stones near the water’s edge had been smoothed over by countless years of erosion. The rest were still jagged.

John was sitting on one of the boulder sized rocks further out. Rodney could see the strong lines of his back, even from that far away. It took Rodney a moment to realize that John was topless, wearing only a pair of jeans. It surprised him for a moment because John almost never went without a shirt if he could avoid it. The man nearly oozed sex, but he was self-conscious about the way he looked. Or he had been in Atlantis.

Rodney picked his way out to John’s side.

He knew that John must have heard him moving about on the unfamiliar rocky terrain, but he didn’t turn to look at him. Rodney huffed slightly when he was finally standing next to John, before easing himself to sit next to the other man.

John had his knees drawn up, arms wrapped lightly around them. It curved his back and rolled his shoulders. And Rodney decided that he liked the way the position, adding in the other man’s current state of undress, was sexy as all hell. John had his chin resting on his bent knee, not looking at Rodney, but not looking away either.

Rodney cradled the half cup of coffee that had survived the trip over the rocks in his hands and took a slow sip. It was just this side of hot and tasted like bitter silk on his tongue. As the silence between them stretched comfortably, Rodney passed his mug of coffee over to John.

They watched the surf as the sun rose behind them.

It wasn’t until the grey light of early morning was a fading wish, clinging to the edges of the horizon that Rodney spoke. “I have a meeting with the lawyer this afternoon.”

John turned to look at him then, still not speaking, just waiting. He passed the remainder of the coffee back to Rodney in a sort of bid to get him to go on. Rodney stared down into the bottom of the mug for another moment, swirling the last of the black coffee around. “There’s only so much that can be done with phone call conversations and e-mails. And since Chloe didn’t bother trying to get my paternal rights dissolved, I have a better case, apparently. There are also some things that need to be discussed in person and not over the phone or in an e-mail. And …” Rodney sucked in a deep breath and looked back out over the water. “And I wanted to know if you’d come with me.”

John leaned into him, bumping their shoulders lightly. Rodney turned his gaze away from the water, expecting to see a bright smile of Sheppard’s face. Rodney was a little surprised to see the serious, almost sad look in the other man’s eyes, a slight smile working at his lips. “Sure,” was all he said.

Rodney had to wonder at the sound of resigned loss he’d heard.

~*~*~

There wasn’t time enough for Rodney to ponder over the fleeting emotion he’d heard that morning from John. Between breakfast, finding something suitable to wear, and figuring out where the _hell_ his lawyer’s office actually was – Rodney was distracted. He was distracted enough to keep from thinking about the fact he was setting into motion events that would change his life and the way he looked at it.

It wasn’t until they were leaving that it actually hit home. They had met Eileen as she was coming up the walk. She had taken one look at them – Rodney dressed in pair of good khaki cargo pants with a light blue shirt and John in a pair of brand new blue jeans and white shirt – and offered a smile so soft, Rodney thought it was almost wistful. She’d met them half way up the walk and turned her full attention on Rodney.

“Don’t you get worried over nothing. If you end up in court any judge that sees you is going to see a good man who can provide a safe and happy home for a little girl. Now, you be a good boy and bring me home a grandbaby.”

Rodney had been speechless, and had accepted the pat on the cheek with nothing more than a blink as he moved out of her way.

John had to push him towards their parked SUV to get him moving again. “I think, your mother is possibly one of the strangest people I have ever met,” Rodney confided inside the safety of their rented vehicle.

“What do you mean?” he asked, as they drove away.

Rodney gave John his ‘were you really born this stupid?’ look before dignifying the question with an answer. “I mean, she doesn’t even protest to our unexpected arrival. She doesn’t question the fact that you show up – out of the blue with no forewarning – after years of having not spoken to her, with a friend in tow.” Rodney was already beginning to gesture, hands expressing his confusion and slight awe while staying firmly on his side of the car. “She doesn’t ask where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing, or even who I am! She just accepts all this like its normal! And now this!” Rodney turned wide-eyes in John’s direction adding, “For god’s sake, she just told me to bring her home a grandchild because you couldn’t be bothered to get some nice woman pregnant!”

John shrugged, and glanced over at Rodney. “She’s always been like that,” he told the scientist. “She’s never asked me what I’ve been doing when I was away on tour. And I told you I had an open invitation to go back anytime I wanted. What I didn’t mention is that invitation extended to bringing a friend back with me.”

Rodney stared out the front windshield for a heartbeat and said, “I think your mother knows we’re sleeping together.” John choked on his own spit. “Oh come on, Sheppard! She hasn’t said anything about the fact that we’ve been sharing a room for the last three nights. She even neglected to mention that not only does the couch in the living room pull out into a bed, but that she has two –two – futons in her… her office.”

One look at John’s face, and Rodney dropped the subject. It wasn’t that there was a panicked look on John’s face or anything. Rodney had already figured out that John wasn’t worried about what his mother would think when or if she found out he was bisexual with a strong bend toward homosexuality. It was that he looked incredibly embarrassed.

“I still think your mom’s weird,” Rodney said.

That got an amused twist of the lips from John. “You like her.”

Rodney huffed. “I like her cooking and her coffee,” Rodney corrected, though it was a blatant lie. He liked Mrs. Sheppard. She was like everyone’s favourite mom. But it was beside the point. The conversation from the moment they had gotten into the car to the moment they pulled up in front of the lawyer’s office had been a distraction. Something to keep both of them from thinking about the fact that they were going to see a lawyer about getting Mrs. Sheppard that grandbaby she wanted to so much – just missing the whole diaper changing, potty training, terrible two’s, and ‘no’ phases.

~*~*~

It didn’t take long for the lawyer to see them. Though he seemed a little surprised that Rodney had brought someone along with him. Mr. H. Dickey – John was a little frightened to ask what the man’s first name was – seemed like a nice enough person, and a competent lawyer. John had to wonder where the SGC found guys like this, because he had obviously been stuck in the back pocket of some higher member of the SGC.

Sitting behind his desk across from them, Mr. Dickey spread out the folders in front of him. “I have to say that you have a very strong case here, Dr. McKay,” the lawyer told them. “Your wife abandoned you without a word or a reason and served you with divorce papers. But she did list you as the child’s biological father, and has not petitioned the courts to have your paternal rights revoked. You have a stable job with a good income and are located close to a number of good schools for the child to attend.”

John coughed to cover up a laugh. Rodney did not have a stable job, at least not in the way that really mattered. But saying something like that would cause more questions that neither of them could answer. And it was for the best that the lawyer believed that Rodney had the safe, boring, stable job he seemed to think he had.

“But what makes your case so very strong, Dr. McKay,” Mr. Dickey continued, ignoring John. “Is that your ex-wife has put in place a motion to transfer full custody of the child to you. We might have to see the inside of a court room just once to have the matter dealt with in as efficient a manner as possible. No judge would contest the transfer of custody.”

Glancing at his watch, the lawyer added, “Now, Mrs. McKay’s lawyer and party should be here within the next hour or so. If you gentlemen would like to grab lunch while we wait, that can be arranged.”

“Wait,” Rodney said, holding up his hands. “Chloe is going to be coming here with her lawyer to just give me custody of Emily? When the hell did she decide this?”

Mr. Dickey blinked and leaned back in his chair, trying to get as far away from Rodney as was possible without sounding the retreat early. John covered a smile. “A few months ago, actually,” Mr. Dickey confided. “She set the process in motion but had not signed nor passed along to appropriate paper work. I would have informed you of this, I did in fact, but it would seem that your mail takes much longer to reach you than I had previously thought.”

“That’s beside the point,” Rodney snapped. “When I called you yesterday, you could have told me that I was going to be seeing my ex-wife. But you didn’t even bother to mention that to me. No you just tell me that I have to come down here to sign some forms for you and to get an actual face to face meeting with me before we head into a court room to fight for custody!”

“That was before I received a message from Mr. Dawson and Mrs. McKay’s lawyer stating that Mr. Dawson would not contest the transfer of custody,” Mr. Dickey tried to explain.

“How difficult is this type of custody battle?” John stepped in. Rodney’s face was flushed and his breathing harsh. It wouldn’t do for the scientist to kill his lawyer before he had the custody papers signed and notarized. “I mean in comparison to any other kind of custody hearing, how difficult will this be and how long will it take?”

A grateful expression washed over Mr. Dickey’s face as he turned his attention away from Rodney. John had to fight hard to keep the words idiot and fool from slipping along his tongue. A pissed off Rodney was not something you should turn your back on. “It is the simplest form of a custody battle. It’s not even a fight at all,” the lawyer explained. “Most often this form of custody exchange does not even see the inside of a court room. But because of the circumstances – Dr. McKay having never met the child – a judge will want to see that the best interest of the child will be served with him or with Mr. Dawson, Mrs. McKay’s soon-to-be husband.”

John nodded. “And what kind of complications can make this kind of simple custody exchange more difficult?”

“A history of violence, drug abuse, possibly criminal records depending on the crime – they are factors in every custody hearing.” Shrugging, Mr. Dickey added, “Dr. McKay does not have a history of violence, he is after all only an astrophysicist – they do not tend to have dangerous jobs where life and limb are threatened. He has no history of drug abuse, and no criminal record to speak of. To be perfectly honest, Mr. Sheppard, your friend’s chances of gaining custody of the child would have been just as high should he have put in a motion at the time of his divorce, except for the fact that he moved to Russia not long after.”

~*~*~

Lunch was a silent affair in a small café across the road. It passed all too quickly for Rodney’s liking. The food was acceptable, but then again he’d gotten used to eating food he couldn’t even name, never mind try to determine what exactly it was. But the busy atmosphere of the café had seemed like a good distraction at the time.

In less than twenty minutes he was going to come face to face with Chloe.

“It won’t be as bad as you think, McKay,” John told him.

Glancing up, Rodney considered him for a heartbeat before asking, “And how would you know that?”

John shrugged. “One, she’s willing to give you custody of Emily without a fight. Two, she decided this before Mr. Dickey petitioned the courts for custody. Three, she’s the one who set up the meeting in the first place.”

Rodney was still uncertain. “It doesn’t really make things any better,” he told John. “I haven’t seen or heard from Chloe since she served me with divorce papers. I’ve never met my daughter. I still don’t even know why she left. I don’t think I’ll be able to let that all stand without some kind of explanation. She’s spent the last seven years running from me, and I’ve spent the last seven chasing after her. I’ll need more than just a change of mind for a reason for doing this.”

John reached across the table, laying his hand over Rodney’s. Rodney accepted the comfort of gently squeezing fingers. He didn’t know what he would be doing right now if John hadn’t come with him. He’d probably have his head tucked between his knees hyperventilating into a paper bag. Impending fatherhood was a frightening prospect.

He’d actually expected to have a little more time to adjust to the change in his life. He was giving up Atlantis for a daughter he’d only seen in a single picture. He was giving up the family he’d discovered for the family he’d spent the last seven years trying to find. With all those changes, Rodney didn’t know if he could suffer one more loss, no matter the gain. He didn’t think he could give up John, not completely. The silent support had been everything Rodney had needed. From finding Emily to meeting his lawyer John had stood behind him every step. But Rodney didn’t think it would be fair to ask John to give up the one place he had really called home.

“Time to face the music,” Rodney said with a forced smile.

~*~*~

There were two more cars in the parking lot for the lawyer’s office when they returned. One sleek muscle car, painted a midnight blue with real leather seats, and one almost new green Honda. Chloe and her fiancé had arrived with their lawyer in tow it would seem.

The receptionist greeted them with a warm smile that made Rodney want to double check exactly how much he was paying for his lawyer. Because most secretaries were almost as disgruntled as postal workers – if not more so. They were led into the office they had met Mr. Dickey in earlier, but had been waved over to a small seating area instead of the desk. His lawyer was waiting for them, thankfully alone.

“Mr. Larkin requested a few moments alone with his clients while we waited for you to return from your lunch,” the lawyer explained as he stood up. “It would seem that the file I had compiled on your ex-wife was not as complete as I thought it had been.”

“What do you mean?” Rodney asked, more curious than concerned.

Mr. Dickey licked his lips and glanced at John before turning his attention back to Rodney. “It would seem that Mrs. McKay is ill. With what I do not know, though I will assume that it’s a mental illness.”

Just then a brief knock sounded on the door just as it was swung open. Three people entered. The lawyer – Mr. Larkin – was easy enough to spot in his expensive suit and slicked back hair. What surprised Rodney was that Chloe didn’t come into the room with the two men. Just the slick lawyer and some blonde man dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a grey t-shirt.

They all took their seats, John and Rodney sitting near Mr. Dickey, while Mr. Larkin and his client sat across from them. “Now,” Mr. Larkin, with his slicked back hair said, “I’d like to remind both parties that this meeting is meant to complete the transfer of custody of the child Emily Meghan McKay from my client to Dr. McKay.”

Mr. Dickey nodded his agreement. This was a dance for the lawyers, not for the clients. They were only there to sign papers and add their witness stamps to complete everything. “I’ve already sent most of the paper work to Mr. Dickey,” Mr. Larkin explained. “But I’m pretty damn sure that we beat the papers here. So I brought a copy with me for us to go over and sign. Mr. Dawson has power of attorney and the executor of her estates. He is here to sign on her behalf if everything works out well today.”

John was taken aback by this announcement. “And why can’t Chloe sign for herself?” Rodney demanded, his sharp blue gaze landing on Mr. Dawson. “And who are you to be signing for her anyway?”

The other man leaned forward, and John frowned at him. He seemed too at ease with what was going on. “Chloe’s… ill. She isn’t always able to make rational choices for herself or for Emily. And we’re getting married in a little over a year, or we were. I’m also the man Emily has seen as a father figure for most of her life. I would think that I am qualified to stand in Chloe’s stead in this matter.”

Rodney continued to glare at the other man while the lawyers stepped in, trying to calm things down a little. Rodney overrode them both. “Are you implying that it’s my fault I don’t know my daughter? That it’s my fault she had to look to someone aside from me for a father figure? Chloe is the one who spent the last seven years hiding. I’d have been a part of Emily’s life if she hadn’t decided to just up and disappear on me without a word!”

The other man roared with laughter while Rodney sputtered with outrage. Even John was frowning darkly at the outburst. “I’m sorry,” Mr. Dawson gasped. “I’m only just realizing where Emily gets some of her personality from.” Grinning unrepentantly at them he offered, “I’m Jim, by the way. Never stood too well on ceremony. Why don’t we let the lawyers do what they’re being paid to do and the three of us go get some coffee to discuss… things.”

~*~*~

They went back to the café across the street, leaving the lawyers alone to hash out the details. Rodney had left Mr. Dickey with a parting comment that he didn’t want child support from Chloe or anything other than custody of Emily. Jim Dawson just sort of waved off Mr. Larkin as he left. The café wasn’t near as full as it had been and they snagged a table in the back corner to drink their coffee and talk about…things.

“Look,” Dawson said, his hands wrapped around his paper cup. “I can’t stick around too long. I have to pick up Emily from practice and then go and get Chloe after. So I’m going to give you a quick rundown of how things have been.

“I met Chloe about a year after Emily was born. We started dating off and on for most of that year, she told me she was divorced, but never gave me the details.” Dawson stared down into the little opening left by the plastic lid on his coffee. “At first I just thought you were some dead beat that couldn’t handle being a parent. But about a year and a half after we started dating Chloe told me that she was the one who left you, not the other way around. After I had exploded at her for not telling me she was planning to move.

“She explained the whole story to me after that. I don’t think I ever suspected before that, that she might be mentally unstable. She was so grounded in reality, in dealing with Emily and work and everything really.” Glancing up he added, “She’s convinced some men from an organization called the NID threatened her and Emily if she stayed married to you. Eventually the story changed a little with time. It went from the NID to some people who worked for the IOA. She had a break down three years ago, and went into counselling where she was classified as being paranoid and delusional.”

Rodney’s jaw dropped before it snapped shut. The NID had threatened Chloe. Rodney couldn’t really blame her for leaving. Even he was half afraid of those people, the IOA weren’t much better, but they were better organized and connected than the NID had been. But this Jim Dawson didn’t see the expression that crossed his face, or the one that darkened John’s expression before they were both schooled to pleasant blankness.

Glancing at his watch Jim Dawson looked at them, frowning slightly. “I’m not even going to pretended to assume anything about what kind of relationship the two of you have, so I’m going to cut to the chase.

“Emily’s favourite colour is scarlet red. Her favourite class thus far has been English, with science coming in at a close second. She plays the violin passing well and is currently working her way through the fourth grade. Her favourite animal is a horse. She loves stuffed potatoes and cheese cake.” Jim looked straight at Rodney as he made the list. “She was apparently eight and half months old when she started walking. Her first word was ‘mine’. And she knows who you are. I made damn sure of that.”

Rodney licked his lips, hands making abortive movements on the table top. “What do you mean she knows who I am?” John wanted to close his eyes and disappear. This was everything Rodney wanted. It was everything that was going to take him away.

Sipping his coffee Jim answered carefully, if a little carelessly. “After I got the story from Chloe about your divorce and what drove her to leave, I knew it was only a matter of time before you either caught up with her or I had to go looking for you. Emily knows that, for the most part, I’m her step-dad. But her understanding the word is a little different than most kids,” he explained. “As far as she’s concerned, for her I’m only keeping your spot warm. She knows I’m not her biological father. Actually I went and scrounged up every article I could find on you to share with her, so she has some idea of who you are. She’s aware that you are her real dad.”

Downing the last of his coffee Jim said, “Look I’m sorry but I’ve gotta run. I hadn’t actually planned on the meeting today and so I’m kind of falling behind on the pick-up drop-off car pooling schedule.” He pulled a pen out from a pocket and scribbled something on a napkin and passed it to Rodney. “Give me a call and we’ll arrange to meet up over dinner or something so you can meet Emily properly. I’m going to explain the situation to her tonight after we pick up Chloe.”

Rodney could only nod dumbly as he stared down at the napkin. It was more than he had been given in the last seven years, John realized. A chance to actually meet his daughter face to face. Jim offered John his hand to shake. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Sheppard. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon when we get together for dinner.” And with that Mr. Jim Dawson, Step-Dad, and soon-to-be new husband left the little café.

Leaning back John wondered how he ended up in situations like this. “So, what do you think?”

Rodney looked up at him before answering. “I think that the world has turned itself upside down and that we can’t really talk about it in a café.”

John reached over a patted Rodney’s shoulder. “Then let’s go collect the paper work from your lawyer and head back. Mom said something about making lasagne tonight.”

When they got into the SUV Rodney tucked the papers the lawyer had given him into the little door pouch. John concentrated on driving for the moment, leaving Rodney to his own mind for the time being. There had been a lot for the scientist to absorb today, impending fatherhood just topping the list. The threat to Chloe and Emily probably coming in close behind.

John was more than a little unnerved by the prospect that the IOA had a hand in the pot. This wasn’t Atlantis they were playing with, but Rodney’s personal life. And John was doing everything he could to make it easier for Rodney to have the life and family he wanted. It stung, more than a little, to know that he was basically helping Rodney set up a life here on Earth, away from Atlantis – away from him. But that was the reality of the matter. John had known from the beginning, from first hearing about Emily, that he was likely only going to get a short time with the stubborn man. He was slowly learning to accept that.

“I want to kill whichever son-of-a-bitch threatened Chloe,” Rodney finally hissed. John glanced over but stayed silent. “They had no right to do that. They had no right to interfere with my personal life when it wasn’t affecting my job!”

Licking his lips John stated, “But it would have affected your job, Rodney. You wouldn’t have transferred to Siberia if you had still been married. You never would have done half the things you did if you’d been able to keep your family. And you’d never have come to Atlantis.” _You’d never have met me_ went unspoken. But some things didn’t need to be said to be heard.

John startled a little when Rodney’s hand touched his thigh in silent understanding. “No, I probably wouldn’t have. But it doesn’t mean they had the right to try and move me where they wanted me to be without asking if I would do it first.”

“No, it doesn’t,” John conceded.


	4. Once and Only - 4/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, it’s done,” Rodney announced, leaning back against the door jam. John turned his frown from the laptop to Rodney. Any number of things could be done with that tone of voice. “What’s done?” For all John knew, Rodney had just finished setting in motion the acts that would cause the Earth to blow up around them in a matter of minutes.

_She’d left him to wander through that bit of wonderment on his own as she set about making them both a second cup of hot chocolate. Usually, it was only one mug of hot chocolate and then back to bed. But there was more to this story than he was telling her. She was sure part of it he couldn’t tell because it was classified, but there was enough that he could tell her. At least so she could piece together the puzzle herself._

 _Setting his mug back down in front of him, she took her seat again and considered her son. Sipping carefully from the hot liquid, she considered how to ask her next question. He wasn’t good with expressing emotions; he took after his father in that regard. But he was her son, her only child, and she knew him better than he knew himself._

 _“Are you lovers?”_

 _She watched him choke on his hot chocolate and flush an interesting shade of pink. She smiled behind her mug. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said to herself. “And don’t look so surprised. I knew every time you went out and got laid since when you were fifteen and seeing Sarah Parkman.”_

 _“Mom,” he whined, embarrassment staining his cheeks._

~*~*~

In the days following the meeting with Mr. Dickey, John watched as Rodney threw himself into work. He was racking up a long distance bill on the cell phone the SGC had given him, trying to bully people into the program and then to Atlantis. Rodney kept himself busy doing things – from aggressive recruiting to poring over the latest journals and yelling loudly about how wrong the articles were. John watched with a sinking fascination as Rodney let himself get caught up in denial. He didn’t have the heart to remind the other man that they were on vacation and he should be relaxing.

Besides, it wasn’t as though John had been really relaxing himself. While he didn’t throw himself into work the way Rodney did, he still managed to keep busy. He sent out the letters Elizabeth had given him to the families of those they had recently lost. He sent out more letters of requests to have certain personnel made available for Atlantis. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was doing on-line searches.

They hadn’t talked about what was going to happen when Rodney got custody of Emily. The subject just hadn’t come up between them, and John thought that it was avoidance on both their parts. John couldn’t contemplate the loss of his best friend and lover, and Rodney had been thrown a curve ball.

Snatching up his favourite quilt and his laptop, John wandered out onto the patio to continue his on-line searches. He didn’t know what Rodney was planning on doing, but John figured that whatever it was he decided on, Rodney was going to need a decent place to live. Between the two of them, Rodney would be able to buy himself a house outright and still have enough money left over to be picky about jobs. Besides, if John was going back to Atlantis and Rodney was staying here on Earth, John had no real need for the money that was almost literally collecting dust in his bank account.

He’d already bookmarked a few places around Colorado Springs in case Rodney stayed on with the SGC as part of the science staff. He’d even found a couple nice places out in Nevada if Rodney went back to Area 51. And there were a few more scattered about the continent in cities with large universities where Rodney might teach. It was difficult trying to line up places when John didn’t know what Rodney was planning on doing, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

He was in the middle of frowning over the details of a three-bedroom condo when Rodney almost stumbled out of the house. He was wide-eyed with a slightly horrified pull to his mouth. “Well, it’s done,” Rodney announced, leaning back against the door jam.

John turned his frown from the laptop to Rodney. Any number of things could be done with that tone of voice. “What’s done?” For all John knew, Rodney had just finished setting in motion the acts that would cause the Earth to blow up around them in a matter of minutes.

Rodney ran his hand over his face and muttered into his palm, “I just got off the phone with Jim Dawson. We’ve set a dinner date for tomorrow night.”

Understanding swept through John like the waves of the ocean sweeping over the shore. It made the almost lost look in Rodney’s eyes come into focus. Lifting the edge of the quilt he had wrapped around himself, John made a gesture for Rodney to join him. The quilt was old and well mended, and large enough to wrap around two adults. It had been his parents’ marriage quilt before it had become John’s security blanket and had never really left his ownership, even when he moved away.

“What are you doing out here anyway?” Rodney demanded when he came forward. He didn’t sit next to John though, just nudged him forward so he could slip behind him and wrap the quilt around them both.

John considered demurring and closing the web browser but then decided against it. They would eventually have to talk about this. And now seemed as good a time as any, he figured. “House shopping,” he answered leaning back against Rodney.

He felt Rodney freeze behind him for just a moment. And in that moment John wished that he hadn’t said anything. But then Rodney wrapped his arms more tightly around him, resting his chin on John’s shoulder. “What are you going to do with a house on Earth?” Rodney asked. “You’d be better off fighting Caldwell for space on the _Daedalus_ for construction supplies.”

John chewed on his bottom lip, glad that Rodney couldn’t see the flash of disappointment on his face. He had a feeling that he was more transparent right then than Rodney was on a day-to-day basis. “Not for me. I’m looking at places for you and Emily when things are settled. That apartment you have in the Springs isn’t going to be large enough for the two of you. Besides, it’s the place you used to go and crash, not actually live.”

Rodney rubbed his chin on John’s shoulder before answering seriously. “You know I would never ask you to give up Atlantis, don’t you? It’s like the only place I think you’ve ever really called home. Besides, without me there, all those idiots are going to need more saving than they even know. And that’ll just feed your hero complex, though I don’t think that’s such a good thing considering your track record for nearly dying without me there to pull some random miracle out of my ass at the last possible minute. But the point is still the same. I wouldn’t ask you to stay here.”

“Rodney,” John growled. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to hear Rodney tell him that he didn’t want John to stay here with him. His warning tone had the desired effect and Rodney stopped babbling. But just as their current position kept John’s expression from Rodney’s sight, it also kept Rodney’s from John’s.

Rodney had clenched his jaw, eyes tightly shut, and swallowed hard. He wanted to seriously dislodge the foot he seemed have perpetually jammed down his throat. But it hurt a little that John didn’t seem to want to stay here with him. He’d gotten his hopes up a little when John had announced that he was house shopping, but he hadn’t wanted it to show and so he’d fallen back on his default setting – offensive snark.

Screwing up his courage, Rodney wrapped his arms tightly around the man in his arms – both to reassure himself that John was actually there, and to keep the sometimes-flaky pilot from escaping. “No,” Rodney said firmly. “I want this clear between us.”

He felt John stiffen when he realized he was trapped. He wasn’t really, but Rodney had faith in the fact that John would not use serious physical force to break himself free. Licking his lips, Rodney pushed on. “I would never, ever ask you to give up your career for me. You only just got it back on track and you’ve put it at enough risk since this thing between us started. I would never ask you to give up Atlantis, or flying, or the Puddlejumpers – I know they’re your babies - or ‘gate travel, or Pegasus. I won’t ask you to give up everything for me. But I want you to get it through your thick mat of hair that just because I won’t ask you to do this, doesn’t mean that I don’t _want_ to. I am an incredibly selfish man, so allow me this one act of selflessness.”

Rodney felt John melt into him.

~*~*~

That night when Rodney woke up he reached out for John, only to find he was alone in bed. John’s side of the bed was cool, suggesting that John had gotten up almost as soon as Rodney had fallen asleep. He was almost tempted to just roll over and go back to sleep, but something told him not to. It was probably a residual side effect of their conversation earlier about him not asking John to give up Atlantis for him. Sighing, Rodney rolled out of bed and grabbed a shirt off the chair, pulling it on as he stumbled towards the bedroom door.

There was a light on in the kitchen and the tantalizing smell of hot chocolate. Rodney squinted against the harsh lights, his steps silenced by the thick carpeting in the hallway.

“You’re up kind of late, baby,” Eileen’s voice sounded.

Rodney stopped walking at the sound of her voice. It was the same little nudge of his mind that told him to get up that made him stop just short of the range of light.

“Yeah,” John answered, followed by the scraping of a chair on the floor.

Rodney heard the sound of mugs being taken out of the cupboards and the soft clicking of a spoon stirring the hot chocolate in them. Leaning into the wall a little, Rodney could see in to the kitchen. Neither John nor Eileen was looking towards the hallway, for which Rodney was grateful or they would have seen him. John was leaning back in his chair, a mug in his hands. He seemed to relax considerably with the mug of hot chocolate in his hands. It made Rodney want to join them, but there were weary lines etched around John’s eyes that didn’t seem to disappear.

Eileen was pulling back a chair, considering her son for a moment, a mug of her own in her hands. She had a worried little frown on her face. Rodney realized that he wasn’t the only one who could read John’s expression. Eileen obviously knew her son well because even though he was relaxed, there was very obviously something wrong.

Rodney knew that he shouldn’t be lingering here, listening to their conversation like this. It made him feel guilty and a little like some creepy stalker. But then Eileen asked the question that even Rodney wanted answered. “So, are you going to tell me what’s keeping you up?”

Rodney held his breath and watched John consider his answer. He had the same distant look on his face as he’d had sitting out by the ocean. “He writes letters to her. He’s been writing letters to her almost from the moment he knew his ex-wife was pregnant…”

Rodney backed his way down the hall towards the bedroom. He didn’t need to know what kind of demons were haunting Sheppard about Chloe and Emily. John had helped him find his daughter. There was nothing Rodney would ever be able to say or do that would show just how much he appreciated the chance John had given him. There was also nothing Rodney would ever be able to say to accurately express just how terrified he was of losing John over this.

John needed someone to talk this out with. And that someone was obviously not Rodney. It stung a little, but Rodney understood. He was too close to the center of whatever was bothering John for him to be able to confide in him. It was just like the letters he wrote to Emily, and would undoubtedly keep writing.

Rodney peeled off the shirt and crawled back into bed to wait for John to come back. He didn’t need to hear the conversation to know what the answer would be. He would get it when John came back to bed, if he came back to bed. Either way, he’d have the answer that John came to. All he had to do was wait.

And wait he did. It was almost two hours before John came back to their room. He opened the door carefully and, just as carefully, closed it gently behind him. Rodney was still awake, having run every conceivable scenario through his mind: John not coming back to bed, but sleeping on the couch instead; John coming back to bed and sticking very firmly to his side of the bed; John coming back and waking him up for one of his spectacular blowjobs; John coming back and snuggling up next to Rodney, trying not to wake him up.

What worried Rodney most about John’s return was how it would feel. John wasn’t one to express himself with words. He could lie with his words and his expression, but Rodney had quickly discovered that John couldn’t lie with his body. If John didn’t cling to his side of the bed, Rodney was afraid that whatever John was trying to tell him, or keep from him, would be nearly shouted out in the lines of John’s body.

When John crawled back into bed, Rodney didn’t pretend to be sleeping – that good an actor and liar he was not. Instead he watched John carefully as he pulled back the sheets and slipped between them. There was a determined light in John’s eyes, but Rodney was paying more attention to John’s body than his expression.

But as John slid up next to him, leaving them face to face, Rodney could only read the same determination in the lines of his body. There was no hesitation, no pause or reservation. Rodney rubbed his cheek against John’s hand when it came up to cup his cheek.

When John kissed him it was slow and gentle, almost chaste, except for the damp hint of tongue against his bottom lip. Rodney closed his eyes, parting his lips under the gentle insistence of John’s. As the kiss deepened Rodney’s free hand slid up John’s side, fingers curling over the very slight indent of John’s waist. Rodney didn’t need to see John’s body to be able to understand what he was telling him. He could feel it under his hands. He could taste it in a kiss.

John’s kiss tasted like determination and revelations.

It was a slow dance between them. Rodney’s fingers moved up John’s ribs before sliding back down to the curve of John’s hip. Rodney loved the slight curves on John’s body. It was something he would never say aloud to John, who would protest loudly that he did _not_ have any curves. But John’s body was almost completely made up from straight firm lines, except for the very slight swell of hips, the gentle indent of his waist. His skinny, but nicely rounded ass, the there-but-not-there sway of his lower back. The unforgiving straight line of his spine, the way his body would curl forward in pleasure when he rode Rodney.

Now was little different. John’s body arched into Rodney’s touch. It still surprised Rodney sometimes how much John liked to be touched, how much John craved skin-to-skin contact. Even while John’s fingers skimmed over his throat and across his shoulder, Rodney was reminded that John isolated himself physically because he couldn’t keep up a lie while being touched, and he gave away all his secrets while having sex.

They shimmied out of their last few bits of clothing they left on and Rodney mentally braced himself as he reached out for John again. But his body still told Rodney the same thing, he wasn’t hiding anything. There was nothing to be really worried about. Except for what John’s body was telling him – he was determined about something, but his kisses still tasted like revelations. And John was sharing them with him.

Rodney settled on top of John’s body, their erections pressed between them, and heard the soft sigh from John when he rolled his hips up, legs wrapping around Rodney. Rodney gasped quietly into the bend of John’s neck as the slow dance between them continued. The gentle rocking of hips, the almost not enough friction. It was slow and careful, and the message John’s body was sending began to change – from determination to a promise. A promise Rodney could taste on his skin, could feel being shaped under his hands. He could hear it in John’s soundless cries of passion.

The slow rhythm built them up one stroke, one touch at a time. It dragged them to new heights of pleasure, and left them gasping for breath. There was no rush, no straining for release. They were both content to let it build, let it ride them to the top, and then tumble over when they could reach no higher.

Rodney felt John’s arms and legs wrap around him more tightly as his body curled around him when John came. And just like the build up, it was long and slow, and the little whimper that escaped John’s lips made Rodney’s breath catch in his throat and he went tumbling over the edge with him.

They lay like that for a while before either of them was able to move. Rodney rolled off John and to his side, reaching down to the floor for something to clean them off with. He came up with the shirt he’d thrown on and wiped them both off before tossing it back to the floor. He pulled John in against him, the curve of his ass settling nicely against Rodney’s hips.

Rodney fell asleep with a slight smile pressed against John’s shoulder.

Because John’s body hadn’t been saying good-bye.

~*~*~

The following day was filled with frantic preparations for the dinner that night. John and Rodney had overslept, having been awake the better part of the night. It was late morning when they finally made it out of bed, and Rodney was nearly bouncing off the walls with nervousness.

He was going to meet his daughter for the first time.

He was scared shitless.

John tried to soothe Rodney as much as he was able to, but it did little good. Eileen watched them with thinly veiled amusement. Rodney hardly noticed either for them for most of the day.

It was only after Rodney had come back from a frantic shopping trip that Eileen took him aside and shooed John away. She pressed a mug of hot chocolate in his hand. And Rodney was about to refuse it, ready to ask for a cup of coffee instead, until he saw the look in Mrs. Sheppard’s hazel eyes. And oh how quickly she went from Eileen to Mrs. Sheppard with that one look. Rodney gained a new appreciation for what he had always called ‘the Mom look’ – the one that said the woman giving that look wouldn’t take any of the shit he was about to give. It was kind of disturbing to realize that he’d seen almost that exact same look from John a few times.

“Drink,” she told him in a no-nonsense tone of voice and sat down opposite him. Rodney took a hesitant sip, and nearly groaned at the thick taste on his tongue.

She had a mug of hot chocolate of her own, but she wasn’t drinking from it. She watched him for a moment before she spoke. “Now I have two things to tell you, and I want you to listen to me very carefully.” Rodney nodded when she paused, obviously expecting a response. “One – there is nothing you can do to win your little girl’s love and trust. That is something you have to earn and something she needs to freely give. All those parenting books you’ve been poring over? They aren’t going to give you any help dealing with your daughter. There is no helpful parenting manual known to man. Believe me, honey, I’ve read them all.”

Rodney was taken aback by this. He hadn’t really expected to get a pep talk from John’s mother. But the type of blunt honesty that she was dealing out was a shock to his system. Rodney was used to dealing with things that came with manuals and how-to guides, even when they were all so horribly wrong. He was used to dealing with things that came with predictable variables and outcomes. He’d seen the parenting books and had grasped at the straws they offered like a lifeline.

Mrs. Sheppard’s look gentled some when she saw his reaction to her words. Reaching over, she patted his hand in a way that was meant to be comforting, and it was. “Two – the best way to relate to your little Emily is to just be yourself. She’s a part of you, honey, even if she’s never met you before. You be yourself, and I can almost guarantee that she’ll respect you for it. If she’s anything like you are, honey, she’ll see through any acts or airs you might put on and turn up her chin.”

Rodney took a bracing sip of hot chocolate, swallowing, before the words nearly burst out from behind his lips. “But I don’t even know who she is. I have no idea if she’ll even be able to stand being in the same room as me. I don’t like kids, I have no idea how to relate to a daughter I’ve never met before. I-“

Rodney broke off there, completely at a loss. Mrs. Sheppard squeezed his hand gently. “Being a parent is an absolutely terrifying experience for anyone. But you have to remember, honey, that as frightening as it can be, it can also be the single most rewarding and awe inspiring experience of your life.” She smiled reassuringly before she went on. “There is nothing that is going to prepare you for the way your heart will roll over when she smiles at you. Nothing can describe the sheer need to lay the world at her feet. Nothing is going to brace your heart when she’s hurt or sick. Nothing is going to quell the protective, violent monster that will find a home in you when her heart gets broken for the first time.”

“But-" Rodney began.

Eileen shook her head, the gentle smile and the no-nonsense look coming back. “No buts, honey. You listen to someone who’s already done all this. There is nothing in this world that even compares to being a parent. You just be yourself, and you’ll see – she’ll wrap you around her little finger faster than you can blink.”

Rodney nodded numbly and finished off his hot chocolate before passing the mug over to Eileen. That conversation was one of the reasons Rodney was terrified of his daughter. Women were like schizophrenics, or possibly chameleons – constantly shifting and changing from moment to moment.

Rodney stood up to find John waiting for him in the hallway leading to the front door. Rodney picked up the bottle of wine, flowers, and the stuffed toy penguin he’d picked up at the store, leaving the parenting books behind. Dressed and ready to go, John held the door open for him.

When they were outside and heading towards the SUV, Rodney asked, “Do you think your mom would give me the recipe for her hot chocolate?”

John looked at him curiously, unlocking the doors. “I don’t know. Why?”

Rodney climbed into the SUV and waited until John had gotten in as well. Buckling up, Rodney answered. “Because, I have a feeling that it would make a very useful – and legal – interrogation device. All we’d have to do is hand over a mug of that stuff and even Kolya will be spilling the family secrets.”

John’s surprised laughter filled the car as they drove away.

~*~*~

The house was just what Rodney had pictured it would be. It was the house Chloe had always wanted to buy, the one she had been looking for while they had still been married. It was almost strange to see the house, knowing that if things had turned out differently he’d be living here with Chloe and Emily.

When all Rodney did was stand and stare at the door, John reached around him to knock. John laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder and squeezed briefly before letting his hand fall away. But Rodney could still feel him standing there, could still feel the line of body heat just behind his back. It was all the assurance Rodney needed – knowing that John was there and he wouldn’t have to do this alone. He would have someone there to support him – to have his back.

On the other side of the door, the faint chime of the doorbell rang and Rodney heard the sound of pounding feet approaching. “I’ll get it!” a child’s voice shouted out. And Rodney sucked in a breath.

It was the moment of truth.

The door swung open and Rodney came face to face with his daughter for the first time. He must have been suffering from some kind of shock, because he could do nothing but stare at her. He didn’t move, didn’t breath, and he was pretty damn sure his heart had stopped beating. His brain catalogued everything. Green t-shirt with what might be a marker stain near the hem, blue jeans with ragged bottoms, and bare feet. She had her mother’s hair, dark with loose curls all pulled back in a ponytail. She looked so much like Chloe, except for her eyes. They were bright blue, and staring right back at him.

There was a brief flash of recognition in her eyes, and Rodney’s heart thundered back to life in his chest. His knees felt weak and wobbly and he was almost certain that if John hadn’t been standing behind him, Rodney would have collapsed on the front porch. “Are you Rodney McKay?” the little girl asked.

When Rodney nodded, she turned those blue eyes from him to John. “Who are you?” she demanded, with an authority that belied her years.

“John Sheppard,” Rodney heard John answer. And he didn’t need to see John’s face to know that Sheppard had pulled out his most charming smile and most sincere expression. It was the look that had Pegasus women practically swooning at his feet.

Rodney felt a stab of pride when Emily frowned at John before nodding and stepping back to let them into the house. “Don’t forget to take your shoes off. Mom hates it when we track dirt into the house.”

Rodney did as he was told without comment. Chloe had always been something of a neat freak. The rule about shoes in the house had been one she’d beaten into his head while they had been together. It had actually taken him years to rid himself of that training, and most of the time he wasn’t very successful in remembering he could track dirt wherever the hell he wanted to.

“Emily, where are your manners?”

And it was John’s turn to freeze, one shoe off and the other almost there. Because the woman gliding down the hall was… well John wouldn’t call her beautiful by typical social standards, but there was something almost surreal about her. High cheek bones, delicate features, honey brown eyes, and a gentle voice. It wasn’t difficult to understand what Rodney had been physically attracted to in Chloe. Any man would have to be dead from the neck down not to notice that she was feminine in the girl-next-door kind of way.

Everyone was left standing and staring at one another, and John felt like a third wheel. “Rodney,” Chloe said, taking a small step forward. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s been a while,” was Rodney’s neutral reply.

“What’s that?” Emily asked, pointing to the stuffed penguin Rodney held in one hand.

Rodney looked down at his hand and back at Emily. “It’s a gift,” he told her.

“For who?” she asked next. She was frowning up at Rodney again, but this time in a puzzled manner.

Rodney blinked at her as one coming out of some sort of daze and handed the penguin over to the little girl. “I got it for you. Jim told me that you liked horses, but the store didn’t have any, so I got this instead.”

Emily reached for the penguin and took it hesitantly from Rodney’s hand. She gave the stuffed toy serious consideration, her little fingers squeezing slightly into the soft body. When she looked back up at Rodney she told him in a serious, if shy voice, “I like penguins, too.”

~*~*~

Jim Dawson served up the meal with a flare; it seemed to be a normal routine, because Emily accepted her plate with all the primness of a princess before dissolving into a fit of giggles. Rodney had decided that it was a sound he liked. It tugged at his insides, made him wish he could have heard all the giggles that had come before, but, for the moment, he was grateful to be able to witness just this much.

When everyone was settled down with food, conversation was lacking. Rodney was still more than a little nervous. He hadn’t really been given a chance to talk with Chloe or get a real introduction to Emily. The meal had been ready to serve almost as soon as they had walked through the door. In a way, he could be grateful that he hadn’t had time to slow down yet, because he was pretty sure that he’d do something to embarrass himself.

It was Chloe who broke the building silence. “What kind of work have you been doing lately, Rodney? I haven’t been able to find a recent article that you’ve published in any journal.” There was genuine curiosity in the question, Rodney realized.

He felt more than a little bad about feeding her the same lie he’d given her while they were married, but there was nothing he could do. Swallowing his food, Rodney answered, “I’m still working for the Deep Space Telemetry Program out in Colorado Springs.” Rodney saw the moment that Chloe recognized the lie for what it was. She’d always been able to pick out the moments when he was lying to her; Rodney was a little amazed that he hadn’t seen this before, even though she’d never confronted him about it.

Chloe was still watching him, waiting for the rest of the answer to her question. Rodney nearly squirmed in his chair. “I’ve been… busy the last few years.” His gaze cut to the side, glancing at John when he said that. “I haven’t had the time to sit down and write a scathing paper to publish.” It was another lie. Rodney had a stack of papers he’d written since going to Atlantis. He just couldn’t publish them.

Chloe smiled around her glass of wine, her brown eyes dancing with amusement and joy. “What about you, Mr. Sheppard?” Jim asked in an attempt to stall what he could see would be one of Chloe’s teasing comments. “What kind of work do you do? Are you working with the Deep Space Telemetry Program as well?”

John cleared his throat, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Kind of. I’m with the Air Force actually.”

“Really?” Emily exclaimed at the other end of the table. “Do you get the fly really fast airplanes? My teacher said in school that Air Force people sometimes get to go into outer space. Do you get to go into outer space too?” She didn’t even give John a chance to answer that question before she turned wide blue eyes to Rodney. “Mommy said that you wanted to explore outer space too. How come you didn’t go to the Air Force? More of them get to be astr’nots than scientists get to be.

“I think it would be really cool to get to go to outer space. But my teacher told me that I would have to work harder in science,” she went on in a gush. “And Billy Carmen told me that girls couldn’t go to outer space” – and there was a very Rodney-like expression of disgust – “even though there’s already been girls that have gone. Like the one that went to the space station. I don’t remember her name, but we learned a little about her in school.”

Rodney felt his throat close up a little at that. She sounded a lot like he had at her age, rushing over her words in her excitement. “You want to be an astronaut?” Rodney asked, a little amazed.

Emily nodded quickly, pushing a stack of broccoli to one side on her plate in order to get to the potatoes and chicken without interference. “Course! Did you know that Jupiter has a moon covered in ice? I want to get to see it because there’s supposed to be an ocean under all of it. There might even be whales and sharks and stuff there too.”

Jim broke into the wave of words. “Emily, you need to eat your broccoli.” There was a firm note in his voice, but an expression of amusement as well.

Emily made a face and pushed the green vegetable a little further to one side. “But it’s icky,” she pouted. “Can’t I have more potatoes instead?”

Jim had opened his mouth when Rodney broke in. “I don’t really like broccoli either,” he confided. And there was something like a dangerous light in Jim eyes when Rodney said that. “But, if you cover it with melted cheese and close your eyes, it tastes more like cheese than broccoli.”

Emily blinked at him, considering his comment carefully. She glanced at his plate where his broccoli was, indeed, drowning in melted cheese. “Give it a try,” Rodney told her.

He hadn’t expected her to reach over with her fork and steal one of his pieces of broccoli. But she tried it, screwing her eyes tightly shut and taking a small bite. The adults sat in silence, waiting to see the verdict. When she opened her eyes again, she had melted cheese smeared at the corners of her mouth. “That’s a neat trick. Does it work with cauliflower too?”

Rodney made a face and it was John who answered. “Nothing can disguise the taste of cauliflower.”

~*~*~

After dinner, Emily had dragged Rodney out back to show him the tree house. Rodney had followed with a look of terrified horror at being left completely alone with the seven year old. John had only waved a little at him and turned back to help Jim clear away the plates while Chloe got things ready for bedtime – and John mused that it would be hilarious to see what kind of arguments Rodney would be able to come up with to set up fixed bedtime rules and schedules when his own sleeping habits left a great deal to be desired.

“You don’t really need to help,” Jim told him.

John shrugged a little. “My mother drove manners into my head the same way she got my homework in there,” John answered. He picked up another armload of dishes from the table and brought them into the small, but cozy kitchen. There wasn’t that much room in the little space. Enough for two people to move around comfortably, but any more and it would be cramped.

“So,” John began when all the dishes had been moved into the kitchen and were being rinsed off before being loaded into the dishwasher. Jim just glanced at him. “It’s come to my attention that you seem far too willing to simply give Emily up.”

Jim just nodded and began loading in the plates. “I was wondering when we’d get to this conversation.” He reached for the bowls John passed him before going on. “It’s not that I don’t love Emily. She’s a great kid, fun and smart. She makes life interesting in so many ways. But the truth of the matter is that I never wanted kids – not someone else’s and not my own. When I met Chloe I knew she came as a package deal, and I didn’t have a problem with it at the time.

“Emily was a great baby. She slept through the nights; she stopped crying when she got what it was she wanted. Honestly, I fell for Emily a little more than I fell for Chloe. But I’ve watched carefully over the years and I’ve realized that Chloe and I can’t be the kind of parents that she needs us to be,” Jim answered honestly. He wasn’t looking at John, just sorting out the forks, knives, and spoons. “Chloe’s condition isn’t going to go away. It’s only gotten worse over the years because she’s worried about Emily. Even after she began to move out of the fantasy world she had created for herself, some of the elements stayed in our lives.

“When Emily started school, Chloe was terrified about men coming to snatch her and Emily away. When the schools told us that Emily was… gifted, Chloe got more freaked out, and we moved out here.” Jim stood back up and turned his attention to John. “Truth is that Emily is still more advanced than the kids in her grade. She’s seven years old in a grade four class and should honestly be working her way into high school right about now. But Chloe is holding her back, worried that someone will take notice and take Emily away from us.”

John crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. It was a lazy pose, meant to deter from the fact John was being deadly serious. “Still doesn’t answer my question.”

Jim raised an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t ask a question, you made a statement.”

“Why are you giving Emily up so willingly if you love her that much?” John asked, finally.

Jim sighed and seemed to shrink a little into himself. “Because I can’t give her the advantages she deserves. Hell, I can’t even follow her tangents half of the time.” Jim ran a hand over his face, and John felt a twist of sympathy for the other man. “I’m not Emily’s legal guardian. I can’t override Chloe’s choices with the school system and Emily deserves the chance to be able to actually challenge herself with school work. I’m not giving her up because I don’t want her, Sheppard. I’m giving her up because I don’t deserve her.”

~*~*~

Rodney found himself sitting Indian style on the hard wood flooring of a tree house while his daughter fluttered around the tree limbs with ease. “Jim helped build this last year. He said that it would be my space, just for me, where he and Mom couldn’t come unless I asked them to,” she told him while she shimmied up a thick branch to reach for box balanced just under the low roof.

“It’s kind of nice up here,” Rodney answered. “You’ve even got a sky light to see the sky.”

She grabbed the box and began to shimmy her way back down again while Rodney watched anxiously. His body was tensed and ready to leap forward if she slipped. It was disturbing, because he’d never felt like this, even when one of his team members was doing something incredibly reckless. “Jim put the windows in the ceiling so I could see the stars, but Mom won’t let me sleep in the tree house so I don’t get to see them that much.”

When she was off the branch, she dropped down on the floor opposite Rodney and asked abruptly, “What am I supposed to call you?”

Rodney licked his lips because he couldn’t pretend to not know what she was talking about, but he didn’t fully understand either. “What do you mean?” he asked instead.

She wasn’t looking at him, but staring at the lid of the shoebox she’d dragged down. “I mean, Jim says that I shouldn’t call him Dad because he’s not my daddy. But that if I wanted to call him that when I was older it would be okay. But he told me the other day that you were going to come see me and that you were my dad.” She did look up at him then, and there was something vulnerable in her eyes that made Rodney’s heart skip a beat. “He told me that I was going to go live with you soon, but how I can I go live with you if I don’t know what to call you? Do I call you Rodney like I call Jim, Jim? Or am I supposed to call you dad?”

Rodney sucked in a breath and tried to think of an answer for her. “You can call me whichever one you prefer,” he told her. But hearing her call him Rodney would hurt, he decided. “Which one do you want to use? Rodney or Dad?”

Emily chewed her bottom lip and began fiddling with the lid of the box again. “I want a dad,” she told him in a small voice. “I don’t want another big person friend.”

Rodney struggled to keep his voice even and his expression calm, when what he really wanted to do was jump up with a whoop of joy. “And I want a daughter, not a little person for a friend. So you can call me dad if you want to, I’d like it.”

Emily did jump up and give a shrill whoop of laughter and joy. Rodney grinned at her, watching her for a moment, wishing he could do the same thing. He’d get his chance when he and John got back to Eileen’s place later, he decided. When Emily settled back down Rodney asked her, “So can I call you Em instead of Emily?”

Emily nodded, smiling brightly. “Everybody calls me Emily, but it’ll be okay if you call me Em. I like that better.” Outside of the tree house they heard Chloe calling Emily back in for a bath. Emily shoved the shoebox at him. “That’s for you. When Jim told me that you were coming I put everything into that box, because you didn’t get to be here when I was little and Jim said that you might feel funny about having missed all that.”

And then Emily was scrambling out and down from the tree house and raced towards the house. Rodney followed a moment later; the box clutched tightly under one arm, and headed towards Chloe’s home at a slower pace.

Chloe was standing in the back door, watching him.

“So, I guess it’s our turn to talk now?” she asked him, as she stepped aside to let him into the house. Rodney nodded numbly and followed her back into the living room where John was waiting for him.

John took one look at them and stood up. “I’m going to head out and get the car,” he told Rodney and then turned to Chloe. “We had to park a few blocks away, in the empty lot of a store. It was a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

Chloe smiled and showed John to the door.

Rodney was waiting for her when she got back into the living room. He was tracing the edge of the box on his lap, considering his words very carefully.

“He won’t take to long to get back here,” Chloe said, almost as a way to avoid this conversation.

Rodney looked back to her. She’d hadn’t changed all that much since he’d last seen her. She looked a little older, but aging had done nothing to remove what had first drawn him to her. If anything, time had only peeled away the innocence that had covered it up in the first place. “He’ll take as long as I need him to take,” Rodney told her gently, and Chloe nodded, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch.

“Jim’s putting Emily to bed and he won’t come down until I need him to,” Chloe responded.

Rodney nodded and didn’t know where to begin. He had no idea what he could and couldn’t ask in this situation. He’d waited so long for answers, but now he didn’t know if he really wanted them. He was still wondering at the fact that he’d felt nothing when he’d first seen her. No pain, no anger, no hurt, just… nothing.

“Just ask, Rodney,” Chloe said gently. “I know you want to ask, so just ask.”

Rodney nodded. “Why?”

Chloe closed her eyes, and Rodney watched as something like relief flashed over her features. “You were at work, and I had just come home from the grocery store. There were two men waiting for me at home. They said they worked for some people who worked for the NID, but they wouldn’t tell me what that stood for. They said that I had to leave. That if I didn’t leave, they would arrange for an accident to happen. They told me that I had to leave and never come back. That if I ever tried to get a hold of you again, they would kill you and Emily.”

Rodney stared in horror as his ex-wife went through the entire story of being threatened and terrified for his life and Emily’s. The NID had known Chloe well enough to know that threatening her life would have been useless. She went on to tell him how the NID had kept in contact with her, reminding her not to break their agreement. And then how the players had changed. How men had come to see her a few months after she had met Jim and said that they worked for the IOA and that they were there to reinforce her agreement with their predecessors.

When she finally opened her eyes to look at him again, Rodney had schooled his features into something resembling mild shock instead of outrage. “Jim talked me into going to see a psychiatrist after that. She explained to me that what had happened was that my own fear had triggered a schizophrenic episode of delusion and paranoia,” Chloe reiterated softly. “She told me that I had imagined those men and those meetings and that I was perfectly safe. And then she tried to tell me you were abusive and cruel and I stopped going to see her. But what she said made perfect sense to me, Rodney. I was afraid, and schizophrenia runs, shallowly, on my mother’s side of the family – I think. But it was so very real to me,” she stressed. Her fingers were twisting together in her lap. Rodney wanted to reach out for her, but knew he couldn’t.

“And now,” she went on in a smaller voice. “I’m afraid that I’m having another episode. If I have another break like the one that made me leave you, I won’t be able to take care of Emily. I won’t trust myself to take care of her.”

Rodney did reach for her then, disentangling her hands and holding one of them carefully. “Chloe,” he began, tugging a little when she wouldn’t look at him. “Chloe, it was real.” She did look at him then, confusion and a little bit of anger showing through. “You knew I was working on top secret research for the military. You knew I couldn’t talk about my work and you never asked me awkward questions. I was grateful for that, but I should have told you a little about what was going on. Maybe, if I had, you wouldn’t have been so afraid and run off when the NID went to talk to you.”

He set aside the box, placing it carefully on the coffee table in front of them. “The NID were real. And so is the IOA. Actually I work for the IOA now. They’re a civilian-run group interested in research and monitoring the government and military. But I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you even that little bit.” And he was sorry, because Rodney realized now that his life might have turned out differently if he had confided in her, even just a little bit. But he wouldn’t go back and change what had happened. He was a part of something amazing now.

He wouldn’t give up the opportunities he’d been given. It didn’t mean he didn’t regret some of his choices, only that he wouldn’t change them now that he knew that things would work out almost perfectly in the end. “You weren’t delusional and you had every reason to be paranoid. I was at first, and I still am most of the time.”

Chloe looked thankful. And then she laughed without humour. “No one is going to believe me. I still can’t tell anyone and be believed.”

“Probably not,” Rodney responded and let go of her hand. “But that wasn’t the point in me telling you. I just wanted you to know that you were right and they were wrong.”


	5. Once and Only - 5/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John never told Rodney about Emily and the polar bears.

_“You’re the type of person who doesn’t trust easily,” she added over his protesting and embarrassment. “You don’t trust easily and because you don’t, you aren’t the type of man who’ll fall in love more than once. You’ve found your once and only, baby. This is it. There is never going to be another person that you’ll love as completely as this._

 _“You just be there for him,” she told him. “You do what you think you have to, and you let Rodney take care of the rest. If he’s half the type of man he seems to be, he’s not going to just let go.”_

 _John was shaking his head at that, shoulders hunching forward slightly. “This is his daughter, Mom. In the grand scheme of things I don’t stack up that high in comparison.”_

 _He wouldn’t look up at her, even while the silence stretched out into something uncomfortable. He’d known almost from the moment that he’d started looking for Emily that he was going to lose Rodney along the way. At first he’d thought that Rodney would just end things and never speak to him again. And then Rodney had calmed down a little and made a stuttering non-apology for being an ass and asked him if he could go with him to talk to Elizabeth. And then it had been possibly losing Rodney to Earth because he couldn’t bring Emily back and wouldn’t want to John to stay with them._

 _“You love what you’re doing right now, baby?” she asked him._

 _John did look up then, pushing aside thoughts about losing Rodney. “Yeah,” he said. “The base I’m stationed at is more home to me than most places have been. The people I work with… they’re like family.” He couldn’t meet her eyes on that one and glanced away from her._

 _She took his hand in her own and squeezed a little. “It’s alright to be happy somewhere else. I did the best I could for you, and I know you were happy while you were here. That’s all that matters to me.” Tugging a little on his hand to get his attention she added, “But what I want to know is would you give it up for Rodney? Would you leave your new home and new family and stay here for him? Would you give up flying, baby?”_

 _John blinked and drew in a deep breath. Because John had once asked Rodney if he would give up Atlantis and Rodney hadn’t known the answer. But John knew what his was. He’d give up Atlantis for Rodney. He’d give up flying, and the puddlejumpers. He’d give up ’gate travel and Pegasus. He’d give up every damn thing for Rodney so he could settle down here on Earth and make a life for himself with Emily._

 _“Everything,” John answered. “I’d give up everything.”_

~*~*~

Rodney had a minor break down on the way back to the house when he told John about the tree-house conversation he’d had with Emily. John was thrilled that Rodney seemed to have started off on the right foot with his daughter. It didn’t matter that it hurt a little to know that Rodney would be able to build a life that might not include John in it, but he was trying hard not to think about that. Rodney hadn’t asked him to stay behind, and regardless of Rodney’s explanation, that still stung a little.

They were up late into the night pouring through the contents of the shoebox. There was a stack of photographs – ranging from the day of Emily’s birth in the hospital, school photos and then finally to a picture that had clearly been taken at her last birthday. Names, dates, and places were written on the back in neat writing. Rodney took his time with those, watching the progression of years from one image to the next, pausing every now and then to take a closer look.

There was also some sheet music folded neatly inside. It was music for a violin from Emily’s first recital. There was a picture that went with the music and the note on the top of the paper. There were copies of all her report cards. There was even a seashell, soft pink inside and almost glittering outside. And there were two ribbons for science-fair projects – one for first place and one for second – with a picture attached to each.

The next morning doubts began to surface. Rodney had spent the entire time it took for him to consume his first pot of coffee fretting that Chloe was only giving Emily up because of her fear of another episode. And maybe now that she didn’t have to worry about it she might try to reverse the custody exchange. John told Rodney about his conversation with Jim Dawson and, after half dozen calls to Mr. Dickey, Rodney was reassured that the exchange was sound, now that the papers had been signed. Chloe would have to fight the courts to get it reversed and then have to prove that she hadn’t started the process the first time on a whim.

The SGC must have had a couple of judges sleeping in their bed because there was no way in hell that custody issues like this were handled nearly this quickly for normal people, John had decided. It had taken nearly seven months for his parents’ divorce to become finalized, but it would take only about a week and half for Rodney to get custody of Emily in a legally binding way. It was going to make Chloe suspicious, and he was sure that there would be questions about it later.

Except the next day, Chloe called, and asked Rodney to pick Emily up at school because Jim was working late and couldn’t pick her up and they only had the one car. Rodney had agreed, got the address for Emily’s school and took the SUV.

That began a week long adventure.

With Chloe’s permission and the assurance of Emily’s teachers that she wouldn’t fall behind, Chloe pulled Emily from classes for the rest of the week to spend time with Rodney. Chloe and Jim were always a phone call away and Rodney made sure that Emily got home at night to sleep in her own room.

They went to museums and shopping malls – pestering the people at both locations with random questions. At one of the museums with a science exhibit, Emily actually managed to make one of the guides cry because she wouldn’t stop asking _why_ with bright, sincere blue eyes and an aggravatingly demanding voice. Rodney had beamed with pride and then answered all of Emily’s questions. (Though he’d struggled a little when she’d turned that same look and questioning tone of voice on him. John had just hung back and tried not to laugh out loud).

They went to the beach where Rodney complained loudly about skin cancer and the importance of sunscreen. And then had to close his eyes tightly at the sight of an overweight man in a Speedo while Emily made a face and John just looked away. But Rodney slathered Emily in his homemade sunscreen and began muttering protests while Emily dragged him into the water. Rodney got sunburnt, John got sand in places where he hadn’t had sand in a long time, and Emily managed to get seaweed tangled in her hair – while still on shore, twenty feet away from the water edge.

Rodney took Emily to the movies. John had stayed home for that one, but Rodney had come back from dropping Emily off at Chloe’s place wide eyed. Rodney had spent the next two hours ranting about the evil that was Disney and did John know just how many sexual references were in kid’s movies? And there was no way in hell that he was ever going to let Emily watch another kid’s movie that he had not previous screened before hand! John had just smirked, bundled Rodney in the quilt, and they watched the ocean rush in until they heard Eileen fussing around in the kitchen.

The trip to the zoo was seared in John’s mind. It was supposed to have been a relaxing outing to let Rodney and Emily get to know one another better. And that’s exactly what happened. Emily talked endlessly about school and her teachers and her violin lessons. She talked about her favourite animals and the million and one things she wanted to be when she grew up. At the top of that list was the fact that Emily wanted to be an astronaut. She wanted to explore space and maybe one day visit Mars. Rodney’s face had become pinched while he tried not to tell her about Pegasus and everything that they had already found out about space.

But while Rodney had gone off to buy some ice cream, Emily had gone to see the polar bears. She scrambled to lean over the ledge looking down into the artificial habitat and was making the normal kind of noises he supposed a little girl was supposed to make at the sight of baby polar bears swimming in the water. Only a moment later, John’s heart was racing and trying to break out of his chest when Emily – already bent double over the railing – slipped a little and gave a shriek. John had lunged forward and dragged her back and away, clutched tightly in his arms.

She’d protested loudly that she hadn’t been about to fall into the waiting jaws of hungry baby polar bears. And John had muttered loudly that she attracted just as much trouble as Rodney did. That made her argue even more that she hadn’t been about to fall – John was sure that she would keep up that argument until the day she died – but she didn’t try to get out of his hold and she clung closely to him when he finally put her down.

That night Rodney took John’s quilt and spread it out on the sand behind the house and spent hours pointing out the constellations that could be seen. He described to her the ones that they couldn’t see and even went so far as to explain the stories behind the names. John had small panic attacks in the living room with his mother while he told her about Emily almost getting eaten alive by hungry baby polar bears. Eileen laughed until she cried. And Rodney came back from dropping Emily off with a sour look on his face. Chloe had given him the riot act about bed times.

John never told Rodney about Emily and the polar bears.

~*~*~

They went to Chloe’s house on Saturday afternoon to have lunch with Chloe and Emily – Jim was working an extra shift that week. It was a limbo weekend, all the forms having been signed and sent to their respective lawyers the day before and expected to be pushed through a judge – who was no doubt being pulled out of another back pocket from the SGC – on Monday. It was also going to be the last weekend that Emily would be officially living with Chloe and Jim, since the plan was to move her out on the Tuesday.

Considering the way things had been going for the past week, John should have been expecting a scene or an explosion or an all out war. Life in Pegasus had conditioned him to that sort of thinking – when things were going well they were bound to get ugly soon.

But he hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t even been prepared for seeing Chloe standing on the front porch with her arms crossed, looking about ready to rip someone a new one. Rodney had taken one look at Chloe, turned to John with a ‘brace yourself’ expression and marched up the walk to the front door.

“You know you are one right son of a bitch, Rodney McKay,” Chloe greeted them. Her foot was tapping a quick beat on the wooden step. “What the hell kind of game are you playing now?”

When Rodney didn’t answer right away, Chloe came down the steps and jabbed Rodney in chest. “Who the hell do you think you are to have some bunch of goons come and threaten me? You think you’re going to ride in here and then just make me disappear? Is that what you think is going to happen, Rodney? Because you got another thing coming if that’s the way you thought things were going to pan out.”

John took a step back, trying to distance himself from what was obviously going to be a very personal argument. He didn’t want to interfere, not when he and Rodney had just gotten their own issues worked out. But Chloe caught his slight backwards movement and rounded on him while Rodney stood there red faced. “And you,” Chloe snapped, side stepping Rodney and striding towards John. “Did you have something to do with that damn phone call I got? You’re in the Air Force, part of the same military division Rodney had been working with before. Did you just tag along so you could figure out the best buttons to push and strings to pull?”

Chloe was winding up for another round when Rodney grabbed her arm and spun her about to face him. “Who called you?” he demanded.

“Like you don’t know who called me!” Chloe responded hotly.

Rodney grabbed Chloe’s other arm and held on tightly. John could see the other man’s knuckles turning white. There would be marks. “When have you ever known me to fake ignorance about anything?” Rodney countered. “Who called you?”

Chloe jerked herself free and took a half step back, not because she seemed afraid that Rodney would hurt her, but because she appeared to want space to gesture. “Who the hell do you think called me Rodney? After our little talk last week, how could there be any doubt in your mind who called! Was that part of the act too? _They’re real, Chloe. You didn’t imagine them_ ,” she mimicked Rodney’s voice. “That’s what you said and then told me that it didn’t matter that no one would ever believe me, because you wanted me to know that I was right and they were wrong.”

Rodney closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “NID or IOA?” he asked.

John blinked at Rodney before understanding finally hit and John turned away from both of them to look over the empty streets. His hand was already slipping under his t-shirt at the small of his back, hand wrapping around the skin warmed butt of his gun.

“What does it matter?” Chloe asked hysterically. “Your plan was to find out what kind of crazy I am and use it to push me that much closer to the edge so that if I don’t agree you can get the courts to back you!” This time she did step forward and shoved Rodney back a step, both hands planted firmly on his chest, with each word. “Well” – shove “It’s” – shove “Not” – shove “Going” – shove “To work!” – shove.

Rodney stumbled on the steps and landed on his ass, but he was back on his feet just as quickly, if more gracefully. “And just what the hell is it I’m planning?” Rodney demanded. “At least tell me that much before you decide to up and disappear on me again!”

Chloe looked as though Rodney had slapped her. John figured Rodney might as well have, considering his tone of voice. But he wasn’t concerned about the fight itself at the moment. Getting the two of them out of the open before it came to bloodshed or before someone from the NID or IOA or whoever the fuck was more important. “Rodney,” John warned as a dark car with tinted windows rolled around the street corner. But they weren’t listening to him anymore.

“Don’t you dare get all offended on me,” Rodney snapped advancing on Chloe.

Chloe didn’t back down and soon they were toe to toe. “You’re trying to take her away from me!”

“You’re the one that that took her from me in the first place!” Rodney bellowed.

“But at least I didn’t go through the courts to have your paternal rights dissolved!”

That stopped Rodney cold, because when John turned back at the sudden silence, Rodney’s face was ashen.

John took advantage of the sudden stillness and ordered them both into the house. “Get in the house.” Chloe turned to stare at him, John could feel her gaze burning into his back, but whatever she had been about to say when John turned to face her was stopped when she saw the gun in his hand. Her eyes flickered over to the dark car that had stopped a little ways up the street and she turned back to John. “Now,” he said, using the same tone of voice that usually got McKay to drop whatever piece of technology he was working on and turn to run for the Gate when they were off world.

~*~*~

Once the three of them were in the house John put the gun back into the inner pants holster at the small of his back. Emily was called in from playing in the back yard tree house – where she had somehow not heard the shouting match between Rodney and Chloe in the front yard. The little girl was too perceptive to not notice the tension in the house and she stuck close to Chloe for a little while before she shimmed over to John where he was looking out the window watching the car.

Rodney got Chloe calmed down enough to tell him about the phone call. It took a little while to get the entire story out of her, but they eventually got the details. Someone claiming to be part of the IOA had called that morning to demand that Chloe give up her parental rights to Emily as soon as the paper work went through the judge. They threatened to put her into an institution if she refused to comply with their demands.

Emily and John were in another room while Rodney got that out of Chloe. Emily was quiet the entire time, her blue eyes wide and watchful. She was sitting on the floor next to where John was standing to look out the window.

“Is that a gun?” Emily finally asked in a soft voice.

John glanced down at the little girl. There was no point in lying to her. John hadn’t bothered to put his shirt back over the butt of the gun. It would be easier to reach for the weapon this way. Not as easy as with a thigh holster, but easier. “Yes,” he told her.

“How come you have a gun?” she asked.

John licked his lips and considered for a moment. Kneeling down next to the girl he asked. “Did your mom or Jim ever tell you about bad people? People who might want to hurt you?” He assumed the answer to be a yes. Chloe was too paranoid to not have lectured Emily about strangers and Jim seemed to have read one too many parenting manuals for his own good.

“Yeah,” she answered in a small voice. “Is that why you have a gun? Because of bad people?”

John nodded slowly. “Yes. I do a lot of dangerous things for my job and there are bad people who want to hurt me or hurt your dad,” he explained. “So I carry a gun to protect us from them.”

Emily considered him for a moment before she asked her next question. “Does my Daddy carry a gun too?”

John wanted to close his eyes and sigh. Because Rodney carried a gun. Rodney knew how to use a handgun and a P-90 and a few other weapons of choice – including Ronon’s gun. “Yeah, he’s got a gun too.”

“When I go to live with you and Daddy, am I going to have to have one?” She looked scared at the prospect.

John wanted to reach out and hug her. Wanted to reassure her that everything would be okay. He wanted to give her the useless lies of comfort any adult would give to a child. But Emily was Rodney’s daughter and she’d see through the lies. So he told her the truth. “That depends,” he answered, shifting to sit on the floor next to her, his feet stretched out before them. “If we get permission to bring you with us to the base where we live, you’ll have to learn how to use a gun one day. But not until you are much older.”

“And if you don’t get permission to go back there?”

John smiled a little. “Then you’ll never have to see another one after today.”

They were quiet for a long time after that. John was pushing himself up from the floor to check the window again when Emily asked softly, “You and Daddy want to be able to go back to the base where you live, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” John answered hesitantly.

“And you might not be able to because of me.”

“That’ll be okay too,” John told her. “There aren’t a lot of other children on the base where we are. So even if we can bring you with us, we might not.” John didn’t think it was likely. If Elizabeth was able to get permission for them to start bringing their families to Atlantis, Rodney would bring Emily with him no matter what kind of protests Chloe might toss in his way.

“Is my daddy your boyfriend?” John choked on his spit. “Jim told me that sometimes boys don’t always like girls, but like other boys instead, and sometimes girls like other girls too. He said that it was okay and that it was just as special as when it’s a boy-girl relationship.”

She looked up at him with Rodney’s blue eyes and John could read the question she was really asking. She wanted to know if she was going to have a family when they all moved away. She was going to leave behind everything she knew and everything she loved and she wanted to know if there was going to be at least one thing familiar in a new and unfamiliar place.

John just couldn’t believe that it was him having this conversation with Emily. Either Fate was being a real bitch for something he had done, or else she was giving them the easy way out because Rodney might not be able to answer this question so well. Crouching back down, John took the moment the movement offered to consider his options. Finally, staring eye to eye with the frightened girl he made his choice.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m your dad’s boyfriend,” John began. He watched a little of her hope falter at that. “See, I’m in the Air Force, and the military doesn’t always understand that it’s alright for boys to like other boys and girls to like other girls. They think that everyone should be in boy-girl relationships. So me being with your dad means that it’s something special. Something neither of us will give up without a fight. So I’m a little more than just your dad’s boyfriend. I’m his partner, just like he’s mine.”

She chewed her lip before she squeezed out her next response. “Jim told me that my daddy had been looking for me and that he’d finally found us after a long time looking. He said that mommy and him were going to send me to live with my daddy because they thought it was going to be the best for me,” she confided with a quivering voice. “That he’d love just as much as they loved me, only he’d be able to do things that they couldn’t – like help with my school stuff and make sure that I got to do all the things they can’t afford to let me do. Mommy told me that it was a little bit her fault that Daddy hadn’t found me before now. And I heard Jim and Mom talking one night about how Jim hadn’t really wanted kids,” her voice caught on the last part. “And how this would be good for both of them too and I know I’m not supposed to be listening to conversations that are supposed to be private but…”

“Hey,” John said, giving in and reaching for the little girl. Because she babbling like Rodney babbled when he was scared or nervous and this John knew how to deal with even if seeing her cry made something twist inside of his chest. “Hey, it’s okay,” he told her when he felt her body stiffen against him.

“I know my Daddy wants me because he was looking for me and he said that I could call him dad because he’d like that, because he wanted a daughter not another little person friend. And… do you want me too?”

“Yes,” John answered with a hiss of breath because the teary sound of her voice made him want to find Jim and give him a black eye for saying he’d never wanted kids where Emily could hear him. “Yes, I want you too.” And just like that, she wrapped her arms around him – believing his words for truth the way only an innocent or a child could believe.

And it was true.

~*~*~

“Elizabeth!” Rodney shouted from the kitchen a little while later.

John looked down at Emily and smiled a little. “Come on. Let’s go see what’s happening in the kitchen.”

Standing they made their way into the other room only to catch the tail end of one of Rodney’s rants. Chloe was sitting numbly in a kitchen chair and opened her arms that Emily moved quickly into. “—call off the goons. They had no right to interfere like this again. And as soon as I find out which brainless idiot planned this I’m going to do something terrible to them!”

Rodney paused for a moment and then barked out, “I don’t care! Find out who did this and tell them to stop! It won’t make anything more difficult in the end. I’ve already explained how things might end up if I get my way and I can move Emily out to the base with me!”

There was another pause and John moved forward to grab Rodney’s arm when all the blood drained from his face and his hand went slack on the cell phone clutched to his ear. John caught the cell and man-handled Rodney into the other empty chair before bringing the phone to his own ear. “Elizabeth?” he asked.

“John! Thank God! Is Rodney alright?” Elizabeth’s voice sounded tinny over the little phone, but the concern came through clearly.

“He’s fine, just a little in shock, I think,” John answered, glancing over where Rodney was sitting, except Rodney had moved over to where Emily was still sitting with her mother and was whispering something to the little girl. John couldn’t see Rodney’s face. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Someone in the IOA jumped the gun and apparently has been trying to make things easier, if what Rodney told me is true,” Elizabeth responded. “I just got out of a very long meeting with the board members and some of the brass so I have no idea what the rest of the committee members have been up to.”

Elizabeth paused for a heartbeat before she told him. “John, I got permission from the board and the military to allow families in Atlantis.”


End file.
